Echo, Episode I: Prime
by Slide
Summary: As the galaxy fights a harsh war against an unstoppable Borg invasion, two disgraced and ill-matched Starfleet officers are given an undesireable duty: hunt down petty smugglers and crime lords while the rest of their colleagues get to save the universe.
1. Prologue

Futility's End: Echo

Episode I: Prime

**Prologue**

"Smoke, this is _Venture_. We've got an unidentified reading coming in on long-range sensors; you are directed to investigate."

The leader of Blackhawk Squadron's Two Flight turned off the comms to mutter briefly under his breath, before tapping his sensor display. The multi-coloured grid of the area flickered to light up his Valkyrie's cockpit with yet more input, and he sighed. "_Venture_, Smoke. Please advise on _where _exactly. Debris's doing all kinds of crazy right now and my sensors have gone done their impersonation of a Christmas Tree."

The response from _Venture _took longer, and when the communications crackled to life it was with a deeper, now male voice that made Smoke grimace. "Two Flight, this is the CAG. If you kept your eyes open on a CAP for once you'd see the activity's coming out of Grid 3-0-5, incoming from behind the Great Donut. Proceed with all haste."

A few choice words sprung to Smoke's mind, but he instead punched more commands into the sensor display to bring up the relevant grid. _Venture _had been the watchdog in this asteroid belt for three days now, and the hulking rocks had played merry hell with the _Akira_-class's sensors from the beginning. The best way to keep an eye out for Borg was for the ship's crew to sit at home while the fighter squadron ran around doing patrols 24/7, busier than anybody except perhaps the bridge's chatterbox Communications Officer.

Indeed, as Grid 3-0-5 zoomed up on his tiny sensor display, a ping lit up amongst the mess and distortion of the asteroids. It was, as the CAG had said, milling around the largest asteroid in the area, a giant rock ring that some witty pilot on the first CAP had christened the 'Great Donut'. Funny for some, but it just made Smoke feel hungry.

He switched the frequency of his comms with some reticence. "Two Flight, this is Five. We got an unidentified craft coming in round the Donut, we're to investigate. Probably nothing, but keep formation tight, this might be the first sniff of zombie life out here." He hardly waited for a response before twisting the Valkyrieand veering off in the direction of the Donut, knowing his three pilots would remain close.

The comms unit crackled. "Five, Eight. Wouldn't that mean that Intel was right for once, instead of just sending us off on some bullshit escapade?"

Smoke snorted. "Then pigs'd fly, and they wouldn't be needing us fighter boys no more. We should be so lucky. It's probably nothing."

"Oh, joy. Probably nothing. So more weeks of pointless CAPs." Seven sounded unenthused, and once again Smoke cursed the fact that he had the biggest kill-joy of the squadron in his flight.

"You ain't happy when we got zombies, you ain't happy when we don't… Seven, you ever happy?"

"How about when the war's over and we can go home?"

"You'll be out of a job, Seven, and I don't reckon civilians can take your level of bitch," Smoke said, aware that he was exuding perhaps more bile than was necessary.

"If the Commander can make it, then why not me?"

Smoke could now make out the giant ring-shaped asteroid ahead of them with his eyes, rather than remembering the co-ordinates. The unidentified blip was definitely a vessel, as it wasn't drifting with the rest of the debris.

"_Venture_, this is Smoke," he began down his comm line. "We got something moving with purpose here; looks like a ship to me but it seem to have noticed any of us."

"Uh, _Venture_, this is Hotwire," Seven's voice cut across him. "We could just be dealing with a piece of debris which collided with something else and is now moving out of synch with the rest of the field. No need to fire up the cannons just yet."

Smoke glanced out of the cockpit at Seven's Valkyrie with a scowl. "If it don't know we're here I don't want to go announcing ourselves to a zombie ship," he said, ignoring the interruption. "The interference has to be doing worse things to their sensors than ours, so we're going to go investigate all incognito."

"Acknowledged, Smoke," the _Venture_'s comms officer replied. "_Venture _will maintain radio silence."

"Thanks, _Venture_. Blackhawk Two Flight out." Smoke switched off the powerful channel back to the home starship and flicked over to the Flight's frequency. "Two Flight, this is Five. It looks like this ship ain't seen us yet, so let's keep it that way 'til we know what they are. Go to low power on my mark, internal squadron frequency only for communications."

"_If _this is another ship, Five," Seven said.

Smoke scowled again. "Don't you go contradicting me when I'm on the horn to big bird again, Seven. Better paranoid than dead. Go to low power… now."

He tapped his instruments, lowering the engines to basic manoeuvring, sensors to short range, weapons powered down, even the lights on his console dimming. They were small, almost insignificant efforts, but with magnetic interference from the asteroid field, power signals were the most reliable way for anything to be detected. They could not be invisible, but they could lower the odds.

"On me, Two Flight," Smoke said, forcing himself to not whisper, knowing it wouldn't make any difference. "We're gonna loop round the Donut and come up behind 'em; should make us harder to spot if we make friendly with the debris."

"If this is just a damn _Sovereign _nacelle, Five, then God help me…"

"Cut the chatter, Seven, and just fly your damn Valk." Smoke tugged on his stick to twist his fighter, bringing it closer in to the asteroid field. With instruments on low power he'd killed luxuries like proximity sensors, and it was with a dark grin that he allowed himself to drift near a spinning rock, free of his safety instruments and flying with his eyes and his guts.

He couldn't see the vessel but the Donut was up ahead, twirling and by now dominating the landscape of the asteroid field. His three pilots were close behind him, none seeming perturbed by the increased difficulty of their flight; the squadron had been playing chicken with the debris out here for days. For a pilot, nearly getting yourself killed on a pointless stunt for sheer ego was a pretty good way to spend time.

"Shit…" Six's voice cut across the comms and almost made Smoke jump. "Juke to the right a shade, Five, you should be able to see our visitor."

There was something hollow in his wingman's voice, so Smoke didn't question the instruction. He drifted over for the Donut to stop blocking his view of what his sensors still said was an unidentified blip.

But his eyes could tell what it was. In shape, it was unassuming – a long, rectangular box that couldn't be much bigger than a _Sabre _or _Defiant_, without any of the streamlined curves. It was the colour that lit up the hull, though, which made his gut give a cold twist: the shimmering dark green of Borg.

Smoke made sure to clear his throat before he spoke; a hoarse flight leader wouldn't help anyone's nerves. "Two Flight, this is Five. Confirm one zombie scout." He paused, comparing it to the grey blip on his radar. "Not changing speed or course, and still don't seem to have seen us."

"Shit." Seven repeated Six's eloquent assessment of the situation. "We should warn _Venture_."

"That's a negative, Seven; we go to full power and they'll likely spot us. They're still blind on us currently." Smoke tapped his sensor panel, trying to get a reading on the power outage of the blip his display still told him was an unknown.

There was a scoff from Seven. "Then let's get _further away_ and raise the alarm. It could spot _Venture _any moment; we can't not alert them."

"If there's a danger, we should warn them," Smoke agreed. "But from my readings this ship don't even have her shields raised." He squinted at the growing Borg vessel in front of him, and took a deep breath. "Two Flight, do not, repeat do _not _go up from low power. Stay with me. We're going to lock on to their engines and hit them before they even see us coming."

A pause. Then Seven: "You want us to do _what_, Smoke?"

A chuckle from Six. "Sure as hell beats normal CAPs or running with our tail between our legs, Seven."

"We go back and raise the alarm, then the zombie here might have noticed us before _Venture _can respond," Smoke said. "They'll _definitely _notice _Venture _bearing down on them. That'll be raised shields, powered weapons. That'll be a fight. Possibly some losses, too. Or we can end this here, now, quickly, no losses."

"But what…"

"That there weren't an actual choice, Seven. Cut the chatter and stick with me. I'll transmit my targeting data to you all. We hit them someplace delicate. Stay out of sight and fire on my mark." Smoke killed the communications line, firmly grasping his yoke. He was going to have to have some serious words with Seven when this was all over. Words which might include the phrase 'get out of my flight'. And then begging the CAG to actually let him get rid of her.

That'd be the day.

The Borg vessel was by now clear in the starscape, moving with apparent impunity and no obvious awareness of its surroundings. They hugged the rocks as they darted straight through the centre of the Great Donut, using the debris to mask them from enemy sensors. Even as they moved within weapons range, close enough that the debris wouldn't get in the way of their shot, the small Collective scout still hadn't reacted.

This time, when Smoke activated the comm line again, he did whisper. "Transmitting targeting data." He hit a button on his sensors, which had already narrowed in on the glowing green engines as the vulnerable spot. "Confirm reception and readiness."

A pause. Then, "Six confirmed."

"Seven ready." She didn't sound pleased.

"Eight confirmed."

"Let's make this smooth, then, Two Flight. I'm going to give you the first mark to power up. Then a second later, another mark to open fire. Don't stop shooting until the thing's gone or I say so."

He slowed his breathing. The Borg ship still hung in space in front of them, not showing any signs of awareness of their presence. His targeting computer was still giving the precise co-ordinates for the target. When it came to ships smaller than Cubes or Spheres, the Borg seemed to rely on more conventional design, unable to hide basic vessel functions within a mass of metal.

And he was prepared to blow that conventional zombie craft out of the stars. Perhaps then – maybe, just maybe – the CAG would get off his ass. Not every flight got to paint the full kill of a Borg craft, even a small one, on their hulls.

Smoke's left hand moved to the power controls, hovering over the button that would bring his Valkyrieback to full life, including blessed contact with the _Venture_. His right remained strong in its grip on the stick, finger tense around the trigger.

He took a deep breath, eyes fixed on the Borg ship, and opened up the comms line. "Mark."

His voice sounded alien to his own ears, and the one second space between his commands seemed to stretch across an eternity. Out of the corners of his eyes he could see Six and Seven's Valkyrie's light up with full power even as his own cockpit sprang back to life, and still the Borg vessel didn't seem to react.

The word almost caught in his throat as Smoke opened his mouth to speak again, squeezing the trigger even as he gave the second command.

"Mark."


	2. Part 1: New Moscow

**Part 1: New Moscow**

New Moscow stretched before her, a dull mass of mind-numbing grey. The buildings had begun to blend together. All relics from an age of urban colonialism, they were a mix of 22nd Century practicality and architectural idealism. The influences on the latter were what would have then been called neo-Gothic but now made the planet look archaic rather than respectable.

Her destination was the concrete monster of a Starfleet docking base. It, like many of the larger, more central structures, was definitely the product of the practical colonists. But beyond the grey haze of the dark clouds and the pounding rain she could make out dramatic stone masonry and towering buildings dominating the skyline.

It was a planet which wanted to be something. She was a Trill who wanted to be anywhere else. Neither of them seemed set to get their wish.

"Lieutenant? You might want to strap yourself in; this is looking to be a bumpy landing."

Alya Kade looked over at her pilot, a young ensign who was frowning at the shuttle's controls. She didn't question him as she reached for the safety webbing; just kept her gaze fixed on the spinning horizon as the shuttle twirled in its descent.

She swallowed heavily to try and keep the nausea down. Throughout the Academy, throughout her assignment on the USS _Daisho_, she'd never had the slightest problem with atmospheric flight. Then she'd been joined to the Kade symbiont, and suddenly bouncing around in a shuttle through low-grade rainstorm was enough to make her stomach twist.

It didn't, by all accounts, make sense. Kade's sole previous host had accrued enough experience in one lifetime to make hosts of even the eldest symbionts jealous. Bruen had been a soldier, a philosopher, a politician, sometimes all at once. He had argued in the Federation Council, written literature on matters ranging from gardening to astrophysics, and served Starfleet on missions the mere memory of which had made Alya sign fresh confidentiality papers upon her Joining. He had most certainly never suffered from air sickness.

Doctors had suggested it to be a chemical change brought on by the presence of the symbiont. There was apparently some precedent for such complications, though they were rare. It was a simple case of luck of the draw – in her case, bad luck.

"Why couldn't we just use the transporters?" Kade asked, half-closing her eyes. The spinning cityscape was beginning to make her head twirl, but she knew that if she closed her eyes it would feel as if she was rotating on the vertical as well as horizontal axis, and probably make her vomit. Emerging from a soiled shuttle would not be the best first impression for her new superiors.

"Too much ionisation in the atmosphere," Ensign Stackhouse said. "That was why New Moscow was picked, back in the day. This was a frontier colony and a military outpost, so it was a good defence. Nobody back then thought this place would wind up an internal planet where no transporters would be an inconvenience. Or cared."

And, indeed, New Moscow was now nestled so safely within Federation borders that one could hardly imagine the planet to hold any military significance. Proximity to Caitian territory was now just a case of good tourism and trade, rather than a reason to shield yourself from getting clawed.

"Somebody out there hates me," Kade muttered, gripping the armrests.

"It's not that bad down there, ma'am," Stackhouse said. "I mean, the rain's pretty common but the walkways are sheltered, and the buildings are pretty much like they were on the first settlements, all quaint and old."

"Just land the shuttle, Ensign, and save the sociological tour for the blueshirts. I'm not intending on being here longer than it takes me to get a partner and a briefing."

Stackhouse glanced right at her, expression like a kicked puppy's. "That might be a bit of a problem, Lieutenant, begging your pardon."

'Begging your pardon'. Kade would have laughed if she didn't feel so terrible. It was a phrase which was only a micro-step away from 'with all due respect'. "What exactly might be a problem, ensign?" She just about managed to keep a groan out of her voice.

"Not spending much time on New Moscow. It's going to be tough for a member of this new SDI thing to not spend time at the SDI headquarters."

She didn't like the smug tone in his voice. "SSI, Ensign. Starfleet Special Investigations. And I'm a field investigator. So, no, I don't think it'll be a problem."

"Field investigator. That means somewhere cheerful like Sciena, the Triangle, or New Sydney, doesn't it." Stackhouse shook his head as he slowed the shuttle's descent, the spinning ceasing. "If I can ask, Lieutenant, what'd you do to be assigned here?"

"I asked for the transfer." Kade let out a long, slow breath and opened her eyes fully as her stomach settled. There was a brief lurch when she made the mistake of looking at the cityscape, but the view was just as quickly swapped for that of dark concrete as the shuttle dropped into one of the vertical docking bays of the base.

Stackhouse looked confused. "You _asked_to get stuck chasing down petty crooks when there's a war on?"

As Kade's stomach settled she noticed the derision in Stackhouse's voice, and sighed. Captain Callahan had warned her of this. With the war at its most vicious, the alliance reeling from the loss of contact with Qo'noS, Starfleet officers who chose to recognise the internal threat of crime were generally considered idiots or cowards by their comrades. Making sure there was a Federation left to protect was apparently less heroic than waging war on the Borg.

"Homicide rose across the Federation by fifty per cent in the first five years of the war. Those rates individually shot up by sometimes as much as one hundred per cent in the areas which suffered the greatest loss of law enforcement. A civilian on a non-border planet is still more likely to be shot by their neighbour than killed by the Borg, and the vast majority of our population remains on non-border planets," Kade reeled off, not expecting her young and clearly somewhat idealistic chauffeur to actually listen.

Stackhouse didn't answer, but wore an expression of blatant disagreement as he focused on the final landing procedures for the shuttle. The view through the front window finally opened up for a large Starfleet docking bay, a few other small craft in sight, and it was only with the slightest bump that their shuttle alighted.

"Have a nice time on New Moscow," the pilot said, not looking up as he began his post-flight procedures. "Sir."

The final address was not missed on Kade as she removed her safety webbing and stood. "Thank you for the lift down, Ensign," she said coolly, heading for the ramp at the back as it began to descend. "Be sure to carry on serving the war effort so valiantly by flying other people around."

She didn't wait for any response as she left, silently grateful to have solid footing beneath her again. She was perfectly happy with a starship, with its stable construction, artificial gravity, and inertial dampeners. Anything that liked to actually fight a planet's gravity, wind, and weather left her feeling weak at the knees.

There were two figures waiting for her, and Kade did her best to fight any shakiness in her legs as she approached, giving the taller man, the one she recognised, a crisp salute "Captain Callahan, it's good to meet you in the flesh at last."

Captain Logan Callahan, Deputy Director of SSI, returned the salute. "Lieutenant Kade, welcome to New Moscow. Thank you for being able to make the trip at such short notice; I'm sure it can't have been easy to leave a fine ship like the _Fearless _so quickly."

In all honesty, she had been as happy to see the ship go as the crew had been pleased to watch their uptight security chief leave. "It was no trouble at all, sir. I go where I'm needed."

Callahan gave a tight smile and turned to the man standing next to him. "Lieutenant Alya Kade, this is Lieutenant Nikolas Valentine, another new member of SSI."

"Pretty much everyone's new round here." Valentine smiled wryly and reached out to shake Kade's hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Lieutenant. I was a great fan of the work of your predecessor."

Kade managed to stop herself from flinching. "Bruen's work was a long time ago. I look forward to working with you."

Callahan shook his head. "Lieutenant Valentine has been assigned as the partner of Lieutenant Torr, in Delta Team. They're going to be tackling the smuggling issues coming out of Klingon and Romulan space through the Triangle. You will be making up Echo Team with Lieutenant Jackson."

"Jackson?" Kade had studied the profiles of all of the security personnel transferring to SSI. She knew of Torr, and she'd recognised Valentine's name even if salient details hadn't stuck in her mind. The name Jackson was new to her.

"We haven't been fortunate enough to fill our ranks entirely with security officers," Callahan said. "Sometimes we've had to settle for officers with secondary training, either on the job or at the Academy. Lieutenant Jackson has been one such volunteer."

Valentine gave a quiet snort. "In a manner of speaking… I'd say we were second choice since he…"

Callahan looked sharply at the second man, silencing him with just a glare. "I wouldn't wish to begin to theorise on an officer's motivations," he said. "All that I'll say on the matter is that he chose to be here and that I think he's a suitable member of SSI."

"Then that's a good enough reason for me to work with him, sir," Kade said briskly, swallowing down on the bubbling beginnings of paranoia. Working with an untrained washout, an unknown variable, on criminal investigations? It bore all the hallmarks of a nightmare scenario. "When do we begin?"

The Deputy Director of SSI gave a small, indulgent smile. "I appreciate your enthusiasm, Lieutenant, but today is a busy day here for arrivals. Most of the ground staff for here at New Moscow are all still setting up, and intelligence reports on the various criminal hot spots are only just being collated. I'll be briefing you and your partner tomorrow morning."

Kade nodded, disappointed at the prospect of being stuck on the planet but not about to argue. "I assume quarters have been provided at the base?"

Another uncomfortable shift from Callahan. "Lieutenant Valentine, could you see to Lieutenant Kade's accommodation? You know where the Park View is, she's been booked in already." He turned back to the confused Trill, nodding politely. "My apologies, Lieutenant, but I have a lot more people to meet and greet. I'll have a message sent to your accommodation with the precise details on the time and place of the briefing, and I shall see you tomorrow."

"I… of course, Captain," Kade said falteringly, and was still struggling for words as Callahan saluted and turned on his heel to leave the docking bay.

Valentine gave her an apologetic smile. "He hates this part," he explained. "The SSI wing here at Kitai Gorod Base hasn't been quite finished off. Quarters are the last worry at all, so… most of the field teams aren't being housed on base."

Kade narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him, falling into step as the two of them crossed the shuttlebay to the turbolift doors. "So where _are _we housed?"

"Director MacKenzie just booked out a bunch of rooms at one of the city's hotels, the Park View. It's not too far from here." Valentine hit the turbolift summon button and pulled out a PADD, which he immediately began to scribble on with a stylus. "I was one of the first ones here, so I've been lucky enough to get a space on base, but the Park View is apparently a perfectly nice hotel."

"And at least I suppose it's full of Starfleet officers rather than civilians." Kade sighed as the two of them stepped onto the turbolift, and Valentine tapped the controls to whir it to life.

"Well… maybe six. Haven't filled up the _entire _hotel. More staff will be incoming, but it's pretty normal in there around about now." Valentine shrugged, handing over the PADD. "There, that's a map which should lead you to the place. It's only maybe ten minutes out of the base. Nice and easy to find. Big buildings, likes its archways and gargoyles."

"So, the same as any other non-prefab building out there?" Kade asked darkly, looking at the scribbled map. She didn't doubt she could find her way through the city to one miserable hotel, but she was left with the distinct sensation of being kicked to the curb.

"Your bags will have been forwarded there direct," Valentine continued, ignoring the gibe. "And there's a console with direct access to Kitai Gorod's database. You should have a message there scheduling your briefing by the time you arrive."

The turbolift slowed to a halt, the door sliding open to show the ground level lobby. Obviously meant to be as bright and optimistic as all other Starfleet structures, the huge windows instead only gave a view of dismal, rainy New Moscow.

Kade stepped out, not surprised when Valentine didn't follow, and turned. "I assume you have business on base," she commented lightly.

He nodded, having the good grace to look sheepish. "It's pretty busy around here. The Captain has been press-ganging the staff on hand for all manner of little jobs. I need to go help put the intelligence briefings together." Valentine's hand hovered over the turbolift controls. "Rest well, Lieutenant."

She managed to not curse either in his face or at the closed turbolift doors, and instead turned to the pouring rain that awaited her in New Moscow. It was possible, Kade realised as she tromped through damp streets and under the massive archways of the pretentious architecture of the city, that she had made a mistake requesting this transfer. SSI was widely considered an assignment in the arse end of Starfleet. Now she was here, it seemed she was being shifted into _its _arse end. The arse end of the arse end.

In a lowly hotel, with a non-investigator for a partner, probably on border patrol to search ships for smugglers until she went mad. How perfectly charming.

New Moscow had clearly been built with a plan in mind. Everything worked out in a circle from the centre, which was the towering mass of the town hall, yet another gothic structure of monolithic proportions just a stone's throw away from Kitai Gorod Base. That inner circle tended to be the most affluent, and it progressed with the precision only a consciously fabricated colonial city could muster. The Park View Hotel was about three rings out, in the rather middle class level of the colony.

Kade didn't see any uniforms as she stepped inside the rather dusty hotel. It was, so far as she could see, standard for a New Moscow building. The grey stonework was slightly dirty, the lighting inside rather gloomy. Her footsteps echoed in the lobby. One would have thought a planet with such a propensity for miserable weather would have invested in better lighting. Even squinting into the bar beyond as she stepped up to reception, Kade couldn't see any signs of fellow officers amongst the patrons. It seemed that either she wasn't on the favourites list of SSI, or her new department was even more stretched for resources than she'd imagined, in both manpower and accommodation.

She was shown to a small room where the grey of the stonework was the overriding colour, mixed with a little of dingy brown to add some excitement to the decoration. The bed squeaked, the bathroom was dirty, and as she sat down with a pile of PADDs full of department reports she could hear a repetitive dripping noise from by the door.

The staff were exceptionally apologetic to an irate lieutenant when she explained there was a leak in her room, but even the offer of free drinks at the bar while they fixed it didn't appease Kade's mood. The news that it might take several hours, depending on the problem, didn't help.

The bar was inhabited by overweight traders taking advantage of the identity New Moscow had developed since shifting frontiers stripped it of its military purpose: a stop-off along trade routes. Still in her duty uniform Kade slouched over to the bar, gripping the PADD that entitled her to free drinks until her leak was fixed.

She really, really wanted some wine. Unfortunately, not only did she have to keep her head clear for the briefing the next morning, but the nausea from the shuttle trip hadn't completely left her, and she wasn't convinced even a single glass wouldn't leave her unconscious. So it was with little enthusiasm that Kade slid onto one of the stools, leaning on the polished wooden counter, and ordered just a fruit juice.

Half an hour passed with just her, her drink, and her reading material of the official mandate of the Special Investigations division. Thus it was in the pursuit of a distraction – any distraction – that she lifted her head when the door to the bar swung open.

There was no formal uniform, much to her disappointment – she could really do with another SSI officer to exchange stories with and pester for news – but it was clearly a member of Starfleet that stepped inside. There were certain ways to tell. Boots, for one. Even off-duty officers tended to wear their uniform boots because they weren't likely to find a better pair of tailor-made, hard-wearing boots anywhere else. Further specifics were difficult - it came down to what one could discern from an officer's poise and swagger.

She would have been able to tell the newcomer was a pilot even if he wasn't wearing a flight jacket. If the walk alone hadn't been enough to show it wasn't just a fashion statement, then the number of mission patches along the arm did. Officers only needed to survive the Borg War for about five minutes before becoming true veterans. She gave this man perhaps ten, but not much more than that.

The pilot swaggered over to the bar, wrapping his jacket around himself, and Kade noticed that he was soaking wet, the rain still clearly going. The flight jacket was waterproof, though, and she could identify the patches: Qualor II, Trill, both Khitomers, and others. He was a walking record of some of the greatest military losses of the last five years.

Not that there had been that many military victories. An officer of the war was going to be much more accustomed to defeat than anything else.

He sat down, ordered a pint of something local and cheap, and twirled on his stool to look about the room. Kade had by now realised that she wasn't likely to get the sort of information or conversation she was looking for from a fighter jock and, with a sigh, returned her attention to her PADDs.

But the sigh turned out to be a mistake as the pilot glanced over at her, one eyebrow raised. His eyes flickered to her empty glass of fruit juice, and he slipped a stool closer.

"Want me to get you a top-up there, darlin'?"

The accent was Terran, without a doubt – southern end of the North American continent, from rural lands Kade was familiar with as shooting grounds in Academy training. She didn't give this as much consideration as the the stab of irritation from his interruption.

She looked up at him, one eyebrow arched. His flight jacket looked up to date, and bore only a Lieutenant Junior Grade's insignia on the collar. It seemed he hadn't noticed or didn't care about the rank discrepancy.

"That would be 'ma'am', not '_darling_'. Perhaps 'sir' if you're feeling particularly patriarchal today. Maybe 'Lieutenant' in a pinch. But certainly nothing more familiar than that."

Much to her consternation the man laughed. "Oh, you're getting in the New Moscow mood, _sir_, ain't you. As much a little ray of sunshine as this place ever saw." He tilted his glass to her, expression wry. "Welcome to the ass end of nowhere. New?"

"SSI. I won't be here long." Kade returned her attention to her PADDs.

"SSI? Them folks are like rabbits 'round here." He remained amused. "That explains a lot."

Kade paused. "What's that supposed to mean, Lieutenant...?"

He shrugged. "SSI are nothing but a resource-draining black hole focusing on civilians – which, you know, Starfleet only care about 'cause they're told to – in a time of war. It's an indulgence of old lawmen. The money should be spent on warships."

She snorted. "Then we can win the war and turn around to find that crime has destroyed the Federation from within. Wonderful."

"Beats losing the war and waking up all assimilated because we wanted to hold the hands of lazy civvies." He took another sip of his beer. "So who did you insult to get assigned to Starfleet Spineless Investigations?"

It was the second time that day she'd been asked that question, and the added insult just made her hackles rise even more. "Aren't you supposed to be off in a small tin box saving the universe single-handed, Lieutenant?"

"Working on it," he said with a toothy grin. "I ain't intending on staying in this shit-hole any longer than you are."

"Kitai Gorod doesn't keep a starfighter detachment." It was an observation, not a question as she turned her investigative mind to him.

"I could be on shore leave." There was minimal defensiveness about the pilot's expression, more an amused observation, as if waiting to see whether or not she'd chase after the mystery.

"I don't see any other officers from the _Kiev _or the _Gandhi _hanging around for New Moscow's night-life in general, let alone the joyful pleasures that the Park View Hotel in particular has to offer," Kade pointed out, one eyebrow raised.

The pilot shifted in his seat. "I might be a little bit grounded, but that ain't nothing I can't get past."

"So you're sitting around in bars hitting on bored goldshirts while you're waiting for a Board to judge whether you're allowed back in a cockpit?" Kade snorted. "That's just precious. You carry on fighting the good fight from this dreary armpit of the Federation while I do an actual job. We'll see which of us is making a difference." She stood and gathered her PADDs. "Now, the leak in my room should be fixed by now, so I'll leave you to your productive drinking. Maybe if you vomit on the Board they'll decide you can get back into this… Blackhawk squadron of yours." She nodded at the patch on the top of his shoulder. "After all, drunk in charge of a Valkyrie can't be any worse than what you did to get grounded in the first place."

He rounded to face her, angry. However, with all of Bruen's experience in hard-hitting diplomacy ringing in her ears, Kade didn't wait to let him retort in as she marched briskly out of the bar.

Reading in her room while a mechanic made a lot of noise turned out to be more satisfying than bickering with a pilot's over-inflated ego, but it still took another hour before the leak was fixed, and then an hour after that before the cleaner could see to the mess. So by the time Kade had her room to herself the sun had set in New Moscow – not that it was that easy to tell – and the message had arrived from Kitai Gorod to let her know her briefing was bright and early at 0830 the next morning.

Sleep was thus rather fitful, in an uncomfortable bed that still relied upon old – _old _– springs technology and thus creaked every time she moved, sticking a length of metal in her back. When she rose at 0600 the idea of going for a jog through the perpetual rain of New Moscow was only inviting because the alternative was staying in bed and doing more damage to her spine. Kade managed to just avoid pneumonia and only barely warmed up in the shower in the brown creaky bathroom which supplied water, also brown.

There were walkways over the streets of New Moscow, but time and a lack of attention meant that their maintenance had been neglected, water dripping on her the whole way to the base. The officer at the front desk, doubtless assigned to quarters in the base itself, wore a crisp uniform and was perfectly bone dry. His smile was supercilious as he directed her to the briefing room. So Kade was still damp as she made her way through the corridors. When outside she took a few seconds to try and compose herself.

Hair… wet, but not plastered across her forehead. Uniform damp, but otherwise tidy, and freshly laundered. Comm badge straight. Pips straight. Words of advice from Bruen echoed in her mind on how to deal with a first official meeting, but lines like 'maintain eye contact' began to sound like advice on how to avoid being mauled by an animal in the wilderness.

She wondered if life in Starfleet during the Borg War was going to make the similarities even more pronounced, especially with the prevalent attitude towards SSI. The only two officers she had discussed the department with had been outright insulting, and this was unlikely to be rare.

But she hadn't joined Starfleet to worry about what other people thought. Not even if her immediate superior thought less of her because she was slightly damp from accommodation of _his _arranging. So Kade took a deep breath, pushed some hair from back out of her forehead, and stepped into the briefing room.

It was 0830 exactly, but there were only two people in the room which could probably hold about twenty. Captain Callahan was at the front, a tall and dominating figure, and he turned towards her when she stepped in.

"Good morning. Lieutenant Alya Kade, I'd like to introduce you to your new partner in SSI, Lieutenant JG David Jackson."

The other man stood up from the second row of seats, and it was all Kade could do to keep a straight face. She took a deep, sharp breath.

"_You_."

The pilot from the night before looked equally taken aback, but pasted a broad smirk on his face before she was done reeling. "Me. So, we're partners, huh? Does that mean I still don't get to call you 'darling'?"

Callahan glanced between the two. "You've met." It wasn't a question.

"A little encounter down the bar last night, sir," Jackson said smoothly, sitting back down. "I think Lieutenant Kade here was just all tense from some maintenance problems in her room."

Kade stepped towards the front, expression suspicious, like this was all some cosmic joke at her expense. "There was a leak."

Callahan shook his head. "I don't… want to know," he said. It sounded like 'care' had been his first sentiment. "Have a seat, Lieutenant Kade."

"Of course, sit down." Jackson patted the seat next to him, grinning by now from ear to ear. Kade cast him a glare, sitting herself down two chairs away instead.

There was a pause from Callahan. "Not that personal problems amongst my staff are my highest priority right now, but are we going to have a problem here, Lieutenants?"

Kade shook her head as Jackson gave a chuckle and said, "Of course not, sir. No problems."

"Good." Callahan nodded. "Because as partners in SSI, you two are going to be working together more or less constantly. You will travel together, eat together, work together, sleep together – _no _sniggering, Lieutenant Jackson, please. We're all above the age of twelve here."

"Something had gone and got caught in my throat, sir, that's all."

"I'm sure. But you two are going to have to learn to work not as individuals, but as two halves of a greater machine. You will need to learn to anticipate the other's thoughts, the other's actions, almost before they do." He leaned over the podium, gaze stern. "I paired you two together for your differences. I feel you could complement each other. But only if you act like grown-ups instead of allowing a barroom bicker to dictate your working relationship."

Kade gave a small sigh, but nodded. "We'll be fine, sir."

"You can't be at each others' throats," Callahan continued. "You need to work together. I couldn't care less if you dislike each other so long as it doesn't interfere with your operations. I don't care if you choose to call each other Lieutenant, or Kade and Jackson, or Alya and David..."

"Smoke."

Callahan looked at Jackson. "Pardon?"

"David would be my father, sir," Jackson explained, looking actually rather sincere. "I'd rather Jackson, or Smoke. That was my call-sign, sir."

"You caught the part where I said I don't care what you call each other?" Callahan asked, one eyebrow raised.

Jackson gave a wry grin. "Yessir. Just for Alya here's benefit." He winked across at her.

"That'll be Kade, or Lieutenant to you." Kade narrowed her eyes at him.

Another grin. "You can call me Smoke."

"So generous of you, Lieutenant Jackson."

Callahan banged his PADD down on the podium. "_Lieutenants_. I am not in the mood for your childish bickering."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees, and their attention snapped silently back to Callahan, some hind-brain instinct kicked in by the commanding – and above all _angry _– tone of his voice. "We have work to do," the deputy director of SSI continued, his voice now low. He hit a button on the podium and the display behind him lit up, showing the holographic image of an M-Class planet.

Callahan gestured at it. "This is the colony of Vega Prime. Once upon a time a stable centre of commerce for trade with the Klingon Empire, since the fall of Qo'noS it has become an important stepping stone towards the front lines."

He tapped another button and the image zoomed in to a map of a large urbanised area on the northern continent, the heading on the top of the panel stating this to be the capital city of Lyrae.

"The civilians on Vega Prime were used to a high quality of life before and in the early stages of the war, but resources in the last year have been redirected to defence. Rationing has been instituted and the local law enforcement has been given the usual extended powers as would be found on a frontier world. This has led to a high amount of civil unrest.

"This would not be a particular concern, as such uprisings can be quelled. However, the rebellious groups appear to be far more organised than on other worlds, and have resources and _backing_." The display changed again, this time bringing up the image of a standard issue Starfleet phaser rifle. Callahan grimaced at the picture. "The most recent group arrested for conspiracy to commit treason were found to have on their possession a case of Starfleet Type 3 phasers. The serial codes had been filed off, and the cell structure of the insurrectionists meant that they had no idea where these weapons came from."

Callahan hit another button and the display died as he stepped down from the podium. "This is your first assignment. Go to Vega Prime, co-ordinate with local law enforcement, and find out where this potential uprising is getting its armaments from. Particularly, where they're getting their _Starfleet-issue _weapons from." He folded his arms across his chest. "I'll provide you with the case notes from the city law enforcers, but otherwise, unless there are other questions, you'll be leaving immediately."

Jackson raised a hand languidly. "Which starship are we catching a lift with, then, sir? 'Cause I know the _Gandhi_'s heading Cardassia-side to the front, and the _Kiev's_not due leaving for another week."

Callahan looked sheepish in that way Kade was beginning to learn meant she should worry. "There is no starship heading to Vega Prime, nor do SSI have a sufficiency of shuttles for you. There is, however, a civilian personnel transport leaving from here in about two hours and heading for Jouret, where you can catch a second transport tomorrow to Vega Prime."

A stunned silence met his words as Kade took a deep breath. "Sir? We're going to have to travel… civilian?"

"You are still Starfleet officers on duty. We just don't, as a department, have the resources for anything else. It should be noted that Director MacKenzie fought for the SSI to have the authority to keep confiscated evidence. Some SSI investigators have been making use of those items which have fallen into their hands, including personal vessels." Callahan looked awkward at this, obviously not agreeing with the state of affairs. "It is somewhat regrettable that we have come to such measures."

"So if we happen to find ourselves a weapons dealer who has a really _nice _luxury shuttle, we should make sure we go confiscating it?" Jackson raised an eyebrow.

"Anything confiscated will be taken by SSI to augment our own resources. Some things will be sold, others kept. It is unlikely you will be actually assigned that which you have acquired." Callahan's gaze turned rather sharp. "_Are _there any questions from either of you? Preferably ones with a less… mercenary bent?"

"What's the extent of the rest of our authority as SSI?" Kade asked, frowning. "I assume we have the same authority as a security officer to detain, arrest, charge, and so forth. You've mentioned confiscation. What if our inquiries give us an off-world lead? Do we follow it up ourselves or just pass it on?"

Callahan leaned against the podium. "As SSI, you don't have an area jurisdiction. Your jurisdiction is your case, and even then you have flexibility. I will expect and allow you to chase this lead to the end of the galaxy, and if you stumble across another crime along the way, then… well, if you can check with SSI to see if it's anyone else's problem, do so, but if you can't then I expect you to use your judgement on if you can tackle those two problems at once."

Jackson lifted a finger briefly. "Are we authorised for undercover work?"

A brief nod from Callahan. "If you deem it necessary under the circumstances of the case."

"What happens if we find those responsible for shipping the weapons on Vega Prime?" Kade asked. "Do we arrest them and take them away ourselves, or are they to be handed over to the local authorities?"

"If you find the people dealing in Starfleet property, then you arrest them and take them to a Starfleet holding cell. If you find some random muggers and take them down, then hand them over to the local law enforcement." Callahan paused for a moment. "However, there will be times when you will be tackling crimes committed by civilians which do not directly pertain to Starfleet. If the investigation of the crime is _your _responsibility, by assignment or claim, then you take them in to Starfleet custody."

Kade blinked a little. "That's… some freedom."

"In the light of our limited resources, Director MacKenzie has fought to ensure that we have the widest authority possible so as to be able to be as efficient as our manpower can allow us to be, rather than constricted by laws which are more relevant during peace time." Callahan sounded as if he was reciting something instead of believing it. "Any other questions?"

Kade shook her head as Jackson shrugged. "When do we leave," the pilot asked with a smirk, "and are we travelling first class?"

* * *

"Wow. You think they replicate this mush, or just keep it frozen 'til it's feeding time down in the pens?" 'Smoke' Jackson almost head-butted the seat in front on the the transport he and Kade were cramped into as he leaned forward to inspect his lunch.

"I don't care." Kade didn't look up from the pile of PADDs, working systematically through the case notes and information files Callahan had supplied on the Vega situation.

"I mean, it ain't even like that wonderful, reprocessed starship fare. You know, where you can near taste the recycled waste disposal matter in your burger. It don't even _look _like real food." Smoke poked suspiciously at unidentified 'meat' with a fork.

Kade did glance up this time, only briefly. "Don't. Care."

"Oh, you'll be caring when you're hungry all right. Unless your slug _likes _plastic, I bet I'm going to hear in an hour or so all about how terrible the cuisine on this hunk of junk is. So I'm going and getting my innings first." Smoke gave a broad smirk that had her looking away, if only for how deeply infuriating he was.

She kept her eyes firmly on her PADD, trying to focus on recent arrests and possible networks or group cohesion amongst the Vega rebels and failing. "This 'slug' happens to have been a member of the Federation Senate, a war hero, and a celebrated author. Eating plastic wasn't in there. And that was just the _last _lifetime."

"Wow." Smoke looked genuinely impressed. "Got to suck to follow in them footsteps, then, huh?"

Kade looked up sharply, knowing even as she did so that she was confirming he'd hit a nerve. She picked a PADD she'd already digested, interrogation transcripts of an arrested insurgent, and slammed it down on his tray next to the plate. "Are you going to read these, Jackson, or just complain?"

"Why would I need to be reading them? You've been going through them already, all diligent-like. I'll just ask you." Smoke shrugged, popping a chunk of meat into his mouth and making a face. "Ugh. And it's 'Smoke', remember?"

"I'm not going to refer to you by your ridiculous nickname. That's the behaviour of children and pilots, and it's amazing how easily the two can be confused with their behaviour." Kade returned her attention to her PADD, commanding herself to not look up again. "And you're not a pilot any more."

Smoke leaned back on the seat, tilting it back. Behind him there was a small mutter of complaint from whatever weary traveller had just had their knees crushed. Space was limited on this transport, and the mix of passengers eclectic, but they shared one common interest – getting to Vega Prime and off the ship as soon as was possible. "Once a pilot, always a pilot, Kade. That simple. Besides, the Board of Inquiry won't have no choice but to clear me once they hear the story, and then I'll be back in the stars and out of this ridiculous outfit."

"Is that why you didn't tell me you were SSI when we met in the bar? You didn't think you would be here long enough for it to matter? That's assuming you matter in the first place, of course."

"One case. This one lousy case of getting some scared civvies to tell us which corrupt idiot at the local base gave them key codes to the armoury. By then I'll have been cleared, and squadrons will be begging like dogs for me to come on board."

"Are you sure it'll be so quick? It's nice you got confirmation from the Board that they're not going to delay your session again." This time Kade did look up, and rewarded with a flicker denting Smoke's grin.

"…you read up on that?" There was a pause as he took a deep breath to regain composure. "So, seems like I'm occupying your every thought. I knew you were just playing all hard to get."

"I decided that it was best I make the most of a terrible situation and to try and work with you." Kade set her PADD down, keeping her focus as she moved briskly onto the next. "I started that process by making sure you are exactly what you seem to be. One dull file later confirms, lo and behold, you are just your stereotypical pilot who had the bad fortune to take a minor in security enforcement at the Academy and was so prime picking for SSI once he got grounded."

"So you concede that it's all sorts of bad fortune to be stuck in this clown show?"

"You being assigned to SSI is certainly bad fortune for _me_," Kade conceded. "As is the fact that it seems somebody wants to keep you here. If your Board had met on the arranged date two weeks ago, your transfer to SSI wouldn't have gone through. Now it's been stuck on 'undetermined' you could have several months, maybe years before they get around to you." A vindictive smirk tugged at her lips. "And even then, they might not clear you to fly again."

"I'll be cleared." Smoke's voice left no room for doubt, though perhaps a slight suggestion that he was trying to convince himself.

"The question occurs," she said, not bothering to listen to him at this point, "as to whether the Board is being delayed and refusing to let you back in a Razor's cockpit because there's somebody trying to keep you _in _SSI, or somebody trying to keep you _out _of the Starfighter Corps."

"Valkyrie."

"What did I say?"

"Razor. They ain't been in active service since just after the Dominion War. Hunks of junk. Flew 'em in training."

There was another pause as Kade blinked a few times, half-shaking her head. She didn't think it was _her _memory that had made that slip. "Whatever. Have you pissed off anyone in the Starfighter Corps enough for them to want to keep you out, or made someone in SSI so enamoured with you they're fighting to keep you? I imagine the former is more likely, but I know the Corps have a rather higher tolerance as they have to routinely deal with egotistical pilots like you."

"Nothing more than the traditional despoiling of Admirals' daughters."

"All you fly-boys say that."

He stretched, suppressing a yawn. "So what's the deal with Vega? Cliff notes, that is. What do I _need _to know, skipping all the junk you've had to go through?"

"So glad I could be your filtration system," she muttered, then sat up. "The short of it is that this hardly qualifies as an uprising. More as an outbreak of petty crimes in the name of civil liberties. It's all rather embarrassing."

"Putting your own stomach before a galactic war, and distracting the authorities from saving your sorry ass from assimilation. Yup, that sounds embarrassing," Smoke agreed.

"It's been building only for about the last month or so. They call themselves – from what Vega Security have picked up – the 'Primaries'. Allegedly objecting to the loss of personal freedom, wealth, and attention, they seem to mostly be using the situation as an excuse to throw bricks at law enforcement officers. Two were found attempting to blow up Lyrae's City Hall, but they were apprehended before they could put the bomb in place. It turned out it was so shoddily made it was more likely to blow their hands off than kill any public servants."

Kade moved on to another PADD, noting with a small degree of weary satisfaction that Smoke actually seemed to be paying attention. "The weaponry is something of an anomaly, and I think it's the only reason they're being taken seriously. Thus far only two crates of six rifles have been found, but in different locations and in different so-called cells – enough to suggest The Primaries have properly got their hooks into some Starfleet equipment contacts."

"Not to mention some mean financial backing. Even if it's a lone wealthy lunatic, Starfleet property fetches a pretty price on the black market," Smoke pointed out. "I'm not that worried, though. What are they going to do with them; throw phaser rifles at cops instead of bricks? This sounds like the Galactic Retard Convention. Why are we worrying about this? I thought SSI would at least get the exciting crimes."

"Someone in Starfleet is selling weaponry in a time of war. That's still negligent at best, treasonous at the worst." Kade shrugged. "VegaSec seem to be doing a perfectly good job of keeping the Primaries under control, but someone needs to deal with these rifles. If they're just idiots with guns, we need to find out where they're getting their guns and shut that show down. If they're up to something serious – if they have a plan, and it's concerning that only stashes of weapons have been found, the Primaries haven't _used _them yet – then we have to make sure we can put _that _down too."

"Dealing with backwater idiots who'll more likely shoot themselves than anyone we care about, and a bum lazy quartermaster who slept through some kids crawling over a fence and rustling a few crates of goods. How the mighty have fallen." Smoke gave a groan, again leaning back heavily on his chair, this time getting a muttered protestation from the passenger behind him. He ignored it.

"I don't know. There are enough unknown variables here that I don't want to dismiss this as a milk run just yet. And I've been an investigator for a good while longer than you, Hot Shot, so I do suggest you listen to me." Kade gritted her teeth, moving onto a fresh PADD. This one detailed the warehouse raid in which the first crate of rifles had been found.

"Huh. You played the experience card before the rank card." Smoke sounded surprised, but not much. "Fine. The lowly pilot will just be keeping his trap shut and sticking around until you need something… I don't know. Scared by going _really _fast. I'm sure we'll both be happier that way."

"With you keeping quiet and letting me do my job? Ecstatic," Kade said.

"And from day one, we establish who's the bitch in this here partnership. You'd have thought that I'd just been picked at random to join SSI, instead of somebody in there thinking I had valuable contributions to make." Smoke wrapped his flight jacket closer around himself, folding his arms across his chest and sinking down on his chair. "But I guess Lieutenant Kade knows better. Have fun making sure you're the almighty know-it-all. Vega's in three hours. Wake me when this hunk of junk is tearing itself apart on landing."

Kade's lip curled. "Or you could make yourself useful by contributing and reading…"

Smoke quickly lifted a finger. "Stop. Sleeping. Nap-time. Go 'way." And he promptly closed his eyes, lifted his collar to conceal most of his face, and within a matter of minutes was snoring away merrily, leaving her with the large pile of increasingly frustrating PADDs for company.

Though, at least, they were better conversationalists than Alya Kade's new partner.


	3. Part 2: Vega

**Part 2: Vega**

They'd only been on the planet for a matter of hours, but Smoke had already decided that he didn't like Vega Prime. As a man who'd grown up in the open plains of southern North America, cities only held an interest for him when he was passing through or otherwise not doomed to be trapped there for any length of time. As it was, this investigation had no cap on it; he knew it was possible he and his stuck-up partner would be trapped sifting through armoury inventories at the local Starfleet base for months, and that was even ignoring the time it would take before their leads confirmed this aggravatingly obvious cause of the problem.

Lyrae, capital of Vega Prime, was a city as proud and as jubilant as any colony. Colonial cities made his teeth itch even more than native ones. The native ones were natural; often millennia old and with echoes of past, simpler times found in quiet nooks and crannies. Cultural influences were strong, and there was charm in their sprawling, functional development. But colonial cities just seemed to be overcompensating for their lack of history by trying _really really _hard to be a proper city. Trying really hard often seemed to consist of being louder, bolder, messier, and dirtier than anywhere else in the galaxy.

The streets, when one was on the rarely-seen ground level, were a plain, uninviting concrete lacking even paving stones. The buildings were metal monstrosities, based around pure function, and denouncing anything that could be considered architectural beauty. Tall, too, reaching up for the clouds enough to blot out the sun and to force most pedestrians to either abandon their feet or rely upon the rickety walkways suspended between buildings and producing elevated streets. The only degree of personalisation Lyrae held was the same as could be found anywhere else in the cosmos, and that was personal transport. The hovercars were of every brand, every colour, every style, and all doing their part to show one's personal standing and wealth as they zipped merrily between the buildings in the designated – and sometimes not so designated – air pathways.

Earth had long ago eschewed the peak of technological efficiency if it meant that they could keep the world a little more welcoming and culturally distinctive. Hovercars remained low, buildings didn't scrape stars, people walked around – and on the actual ground, at that.

All of this seemed alien to Vega, and Vega Prime seemed alien to Smoke.

He had seen the sights of Lyrae from their transport as it had landed, and even then it had filled him with horror. New Moscow, for all of its meteorological disadvantages, at least had some charm of its own. This was just an urban wasteland.

He'd hoped they would be whisked away to the local Starfleet base upon landing, until Kade had commented – when they were coming through the Arrivals lounge at the space port, no less – that they were to make their own way there. Smoke had managed to not curse and was about to suggest they go look for a taxi when she'd continued to say they were expected, first thing, at the Vega Security main office.

The taxi ride had been an experience that some might have called 'near-death', the rickety little machine threatening to shake apart at every turn and being handled by a Benzite who took to the air like a penguin. But the worst thing, the worst part of _all _of it, was where they currently were. And Smoke just prayed it wouldn't get worse.

Because it seemed as if being expected 'first thing' at the VegaSec office actually meant that they were supposed to sit in the waiting room with foul coffee, in their nice crisp uniforms alongside the local waste that had been brought in to be processed. Without being received. For an hour.

The VegaSec office was about as charming as the rest of Lyrae – all metal and function, no style. Around them bored sergeants processed petty criminals, who sat in the chairs near them and moaned with either complaints or pain until they finally had a tiny piece of paperwork completed and were either kicked out or dragged away to cells. But nobody paid any attention to the two Starfleet officers.

"More coffee?" Kade asked, somehow not looking disgusted as she put her empty mug down on the table. A refill would be impossible; the table was so sticky there was no way that cup could be picked up again.

"You tryin' to kill me?" Smoke's arms were folded across his chest, his dark glare flitting across the room. He missed his flight jacket. It was warm and comfortable, and in situations like this he could burrow in it and go to sleep. But Kade had insisted they be in full uniform. After all, they had to look presentable when they were being _ignored_.

"Thinking on it," he continued after a moment, "yes, please. Death by this crap has to be better than either turning into a stiff from boredom or getting myself stabbed by one of the low-lifes later."

"It's not that bad," Kade protested weakly.

"Well, obviously, you got yourself a stronger stomach and a mite less class than me. I wouldn't be seen using this stuff to fuel my Valk. I got a feeling it'd burn better than the fuel, mind. Perhaps it could be used for chemical warfare, though that there might be a violation of the Khitomer Accords." Smoke lifted his half-finished cup and sniffed experimentally. "Hey, perhaps we could give it to these Primary fellas. It'd probably explode more reliably than the street-bombs they've been putting together."

Kade just stalked off towards the rickety coffee machine. Smoke kept his glare on his surroundings and off her, briefly grateful for the moment's peace. Spending the better part of the last twenty-four hours in close proximity to his new partner had not been his idea of a good time. And that even included the parts – the majority – where they hadn't been talking.

So he was too lost in his moment of solitude to notice the burly, moustached human in a VegaSec uniform stride up self-importantly until the man's bulk was blocking out the light.

Smoke squinted up. "If you're looking for the fella who got caught soliciting, I think he's two rows back. I would actually be a different kind of flavour of scum than your usual fare here."

"Lieutenant Kade?" The VegaSec officer, whom Smoke could now see was an Inspector, didn't seem either interested or amused.

"Uh, no." Smoke stood, feeling his back click as he did so. "That would be my partner, the lovely lady with the spots trying to kill herself at your vending machine over there. I'm Lieutenant Jackson."

The Inspector looked towards the queue for coffee. "What's she doing rushing off for a drink when we've got work to do? Don't have time to sit around all day." He gestured impatiently. "Can't you get her under control and over here, Lieutenant?"

"I wish, and no." Smoke sighed, shaking his head. "We've been stuck here for an hour waiting on you fellas. Least we could do for funnies is poison ourselves with your coffee."

"It's a busy day, Lieutenant, if you couldn't see that already. We have better things to worry about than some nosy 'fleeties looking into problems that we can deal with ourselves," the Inspector said tartly.

"...and I got better things to be worrying about than if your citizens want to blow themselves up, but both our superiors think we're wrong, so we should probably be indulging them. Crazy things like wages, and all that." Smoke gave him a humourless smile as Kade stepped up and handed him a cup of coffee.

"I think the machine's about to keel over," she said with a grimace, then looked up to the Inspector. "Can I help you?"

"It's coffee this security force was built on, little lady, so you can either like it or leave it," the man replied briskly. "I don't rightly care. If you two are finished, we can get down to business?"

Smoke stared for a moment, but was grateful that Kade seemed to have been taken out of the running entirely with the 'little lady' comment. "Just as we were beginning to get so close, you go and ruin it with business?" he said. "Such a shame. I was feeling we had a connection."

The Inspector arched an eyebrow at him. "Trying to be funny? This how 'fleeties get the job done?"

"No, we'd rely on top-of-the-line weaponry to keep folks in check, and the fact that you can't stop this gear from falling into the hands of mediocre felons would be why we're here to tidy up after you all. We also have a crazy fondness for oddities of professional procedure, including things like, oh, I don't know… introductions?"

The moustache twitched and the VegaSec officer stuck out a meaty hand. "Inspector Verne. You're Jackson and Kade; I don't care to know more, so let's keep the pleasantries to a minimum. And you're wasting your time here."

Kade gave a tight, vicious smile. "We'll be the judge of that, Inspector. You're supposed to give us a proper briefing?"

"I could do that, or I could just cut to the chase. Follow me and try to keep up; I don't fancy repeating myself." Verne gestured sharply to a corridor away from the waiting room and set off at a brisk pace.

Smoke rolled his eyes, glancing at Kade. "So charming. I love it here. Can we buy ourselves a house in the city and produce lots of fat, rude, urbanised babies together?" Not waiting for a response, and already feeling about as miserable and irritable as was possible without going on a killing spree, he shoved his hands into his pocket and fell into sulky pace behind Verne, knowing she'd follow.

He was right, and the two remained in a taut silence as they waited for the Inspector to begin explaining, which he did once they were out of earshot of the waiting room and still trundling down a long and seemingly endless corridor.

"You could stay here and try to poke at the Primaries and all the rubbish they've been spouting. See if they actually have a financial backer to get them money to buy the weapons off the black market, or a connection amongst you 'fleeties who's just handing them over for some reason. And then I'd have to help you." Verne sounded like he'd rather chew on the barrel of his own phaser rifle. "Or you could wait around another couple of hours and we'll have the entire thing done and dusted."

Smoke rolled his eyes. "Wait even longer? Perhaps experience the sights and sounds of Lyrae while we're going all grey? Wow, you're the best VegaSec Uncle ever!"

Verne took a deep breath before he turned around to face Smoke. "Look, kid. That mouth might be impressive where you come from, but here, we like to do work. Now you can co-operate, or I can tell your boss that you're being an obstruction in the case, which would pretty much send you down to the pits on your very first precious assignment. I know this SSI junk is a joke even amongst you 'fleeties, so… you can be a joke amongst jokes, or you can shut your trap and listen."

Kade elbowed him, hard, and Smoke felt a second wave of irritation – as if he needed her chastising him after the first self-righteous tirade. "I'm sorry, Inspector Verne. Please explain?"

Verne snorted, turning back and continuing down the corridor. "Our latest arrest yesterday – some political type trying to stir up anti-establishment sentiment at a rally – squealed to us about the Primary main meeting place, a warehouse in the industrial district, and says there's a gathering there in two hours. We're going to raid it. That should give us your weapons and the people who'll give us the answers we need."

Smoke opened his mouth again, but received a second elbow in the ribs and fell angrily silent.

"We'll obviously want to be in on any interrogations of those you," Kade said, bowing her head slightly.

"Like hell we'll…" Smoke sidestepped this time to avoid the elbow, giving his partner a vicious glare. "Hey! We didn't come across two sectors to drink bad coffee and sit with our thumbs up our asses before you guys could do our jobs for us – badly, I'd be adding – and we could go home! If there's a raid, then you bet your lazy city-dwelling ass we're coming with!"

Verne gave another snort. "Fancy getting shot by civilians today, son?"

Smoke's eyes narrowed. "You might be all accomplished at walking your beat and eating donuts, but some of us here know that there's a war going on, and so actually practice for that kind of thing. If it was thought that some dawdlers could handle this case, then men enjoying a bigger bounty in the brain department than yourself wouldn't have sent the two of us."

"This is still VegaSec jurisdiction, and…"

"The Primaries have got Starfleet property in their grubby hands and we've been sent to investigate. That makes this here a SSI case. You just be glad we're letting you fellas run the show on keeping tabs on everyone, 'cause we would be in our fullest authority to take over this entire shindig." Smoke folded his arms across his chest. "I'll let you go worrying about jokers who can't even set off a bomb right if you want, but this is a big hit on a group I've been sent to investigate. You seem to be under the impression I'm asking you if we can tag along on your raid. I'm _telling _you." His gaze flickered sideways to Kade, who had the good grace to look abashed. "Not crawling up your ass trying not to upset anyone."

Verne glowered, moustache again bristling, but then turned to point down the left hand turn of another corridor. "The Armoury's two doors down on the right, get you some gear and weapons, then ask the Quartermaster for directions to Garage Bay B to meet the team. If you're not down there in forty-five minutes, we leave without you. You will be in the support team watching the back exit, and you will follow the instructions of your element leader regardless of any Starfleet crap or I will place a boot up your ass, SSI or no SSI." But he seemed more resigned than aggressive as he strode off, not waiting for a response, down the opposite corridor.

Smoke turned to face Kade, expression dark. "You can come thank me after you see a chiropractor for all the back damage _bending over _for that guy must have done," he spat.

Kade rolled her eyes. "Well, after you'd charmed him so _thoroughly _to begin with, I decided that perhaps one of us needed to be polite so he didn't cut us out of this investigation entirely, like he clearly wanted to do."

"Cut us out? Was I the only one paying attention when Old Man Callahan explained that our power is pretty absolute round here? We're meant to be able to deal with this shit quickly so we can move onto the next waste-of-time job. Not cosy up to fat cops with delusions of grandeur." Smoke threw his hands into the air.

"The piece of paper might say that," Kade said, "but the reality is that if Verne wanted us out – really out – of this case, then it would be just a matter of giving us misleading information we could chase to stay out of his hair. So I thought that, perhaps, acting like professionals instead of spoilts brat could get results."

Smoke sneered a little. "Whatever. It worked, didn't it? You can bitch about this later, but in the meantime we got VegaSec cardboard armour to strap ourselves into. Hey, maybe it'll block the blast from a top-of-the-line Starfleet phaser rifle they let fall into average hands?"

"Maybe your body will when I use it as a shield," Kade muttered, striding off down the corridor Verne had directed them to.

"So how come you don't try to be all professional and polite to _me _if you want to get results?" Smoke asked, allowing petulance to creep into his voice to irritate her even more.

"Because _your _head I can just bash against a wall with no recriminations. Honestly, Jackson, you think you weren't assigned to work with me so I could keep you in line and stop you from busting a case with your charming manner?" Kade retorted.

"And you're honestly thinking, _little lady_, that I wasn't assigned to work with you so that I could make you be more flexible than you are with that _stick up your ass_?" He watched for a reaction to echoing Verne's words.

It brought a snort that sounded like genuine amusement. "Ha. 'Little lady'. Where does he think he is, in a Western? It doesn't even sound convincing coming out of _your _accent, Jackson. Maybe he likes trashy holodeck programmes where he can play sheriff."

"Wouldn't that be a postman's holiday for him?"

"A town sheriff would actually have authority and power, so… it would be a pleasant fantasy for him." Kade rolled her eyes. "Why, exactly, do we need to be on this raid, though?"

They were stood in front of the door to the armoury. Smoke shrugged, making something of a face. "We might see something they won't," he said, not convinced. "We know Starfleet ordinance. They don't."

"If it's still packaged standard issue, then the gear will be in a crate with a huge damn Starfleet chevron on it. If it's not, then it could be anywhere, in anything, and our expertise won't be any greater than theirs. I don't see why…"

Smoke grimaced. "Or we could sit around in this HQ drinking their murderous coffee while they get the arrest. Then we can prove to the universe we're even more toothless than our most cantankerous Starfleet critics think we are." He shrugged. "All I'm saying is… we need to be involved."

"It's not worth making enemies over." Kade frowned at him. "We may need to work with VegaSec beyond just this raid. I agree… we should be more involved. I was wrong with that. But we don't need to be outright antagonistic."

"You handle things your way, I'll handle things mine."

Kade snorted, and knocked on the door. "A wonderful partnership."

"Yup. We're one hell of a team."

* * *

"_Element Two, hold. Maintain surveillance of rear exit. Do not enter until we give the signal. You are to hold position unless perps attempt to make a getaway._"

"Wow. After such a boring, lengthy… _repetitive _briefing, you'd be thinking that most everyone here understood what they were meant to be doing." Smoke flicked the targeting tab on his phaser rifle up and down with irritation as he squatted with his back against the wall, he and Kade lined up along with three other members of VegaSec.

The warehouse in which the Primaries were squared away had a back door leading to a large loading bay, and security teams were placed down each of the three alleyways which led to the street. They were in cover enough to not be spotted from the warehouse, the element's spotter had a view of the back door itself, and the entire team could see most of the loading bay and all exits.

Kade's arm jerked to deliver the by-now familiar elbow to the ribs, which his raid armour absorbed. Although the gear was, first and foremost, designed to deal with energy blasts like those from a phaser, it could certainly deal with gut-punches and a sharp Trill elbow.

"Ow… can't you just tell me to shut up, instead of getting violent?" Smoke frowned at her with mock-pain, rubbing his side.

"I could. This way's more fun…"

"Shh." The element leader, a Sergeant whose name Kade couldn't remember after being too distracted by Smoke's mutterings through the briefings, gave them a glare and lifted a finger to his lips. His other hand tapped his headset, identical to what they all wore and through which she had heard Verne's instructions.

"Uh oh. Teacher's glaring at us. Better pipe down." Smoke winked.

She gritted her teeth together. "Shut. Up. I'd like for us to appear professional. What are you, twelve?"

"Twelve and a half." He grinning a somewhat moronic grin.

Kade rolled her eyes but remained silent, not wishing to antagonise the VegaSec officers who were already looking irritated. Throughout the briefing they had been treated by both Inspector Verne and the raid team with either annoyance or the sort of amused indulgence one reserved for a small child or mascot.

Now they settled down to wait. This warehouse was one of the few buildings on Lyrae actually on the ground level, where the air was thicker from fumes, the light weaker from the tall buildings blocking out the sun, and the walls close and oppressive courtesy of Vega's tendency towards extreme urbanisation.

"_Element One moving in_." Their headsets were all set to the universal frequency, and if the operation ran the smoothest it was predicted it could be, all that those at the back would witness would be the simple reports coming over the communications channels. It would be open throughout, delivering every order, announcement, complaint, breath… shot...

_Entry Pattern One… Breach the doorway, prepare to move in_… a short, sharp, clear bang and the sound of screeching metal… _Go, go, go_…!

Footsteps… heavy breathing… _Beta take right, Charlie take left, Alpha with me in the centre_…

_All clear… Service gateway… Alpha, breach it. Beta, cover Alpha. Charlie, watch that corridor… _Then another, significantly louder boom, one that they could this time hear without the comms.

_Go, go, go! _… again footsteps, the clicking of rifles double-checked at the last minute in a rookie mistake which made Kade's teeth itch…

Then silence for several long, aching seconds which felt like years.

_Nobody home. Better make sure. _Slow, cautious footsteps, heavier breathing. _Standard sweeping pattern, one, two, three, Alpha, Beta, Charlie._

The element leader for those waiting out back frowned, and pressed a hand against the left side of his headset. "_Element One, this is Two. Status?_"

Verne's reply was irritable. "_We're in the main warehouse, Two, but there doesn't seem to be anyone home. Lights are on, though. Keep an eye out, it might be…_"

The rest of his words were lost to all members of Element Two as, at that exact moment, the huge back door rattled upwards and open with a loud, metallic crash, and frantic shouts and running footsteps could be heard. The sergeant in charge of the team sat bolt upright, rifle in hand, only a nanosecond faster in his reaction times than the other VegaSec officers.

Despite her cynicism in regards to local law enforcement in general, Kade was rather impressed by the speed with which the raid officer responded. As one they moved from attentive but slightly bored to crouching or standing according to the pattern of the brief, rifles up and trained on the alleyway.

The order to fire didn't even need to be given as stun shots lanced out in the direction of a large group of perhaps a dozen men and women running like the blazes out of the back of the warehouse. Some bore small hand phasers of an old make, some bore high quality modern hunting rifles, but all were armed, and despite the surprise of seeing the VegaSec officers, they recovered quickly.

Within seconds, Element Two's responsibility had gone from watching the back and picking up stragglers – or charging inside the warehouse to the rescue – to presenting the main offensive against the fleeing insurgents.

"How the hell did they get out so fast?" Smoke bellowed to Kade over the noise of phaser blasts, his own rifle in hand but not yet firing.

Kade kept her weapon raised, but was also not firing. Instead, her gaze went through the targeting scope to focus on individual after individual, evaluating and observing. VegaSec seemed to have the main body of the Primaries – if they were indeed so – under control, doing their job. It was her turn to do theirs, and they were there to worry about the weapons, not the people carrying them.

"Saw us coming. Tip-off. Got lucky. Thousand and one options. Worry about that later. Just see if any have got a Starfleet phaser." She didn't look up, didn't falter in her calm, swift assessment of the dozen or so individuals.

Although there were fewer VegaSec officers than there were Primaries, they were law enforcement professionals against what seemed to be – by their organisation, weaponry, and general accuracy – untrained civilians. VegaSec had also been set up in preparation of exactly this kind of ambush, which the Primaries had run right into.

Kade could also tell, from her experience in attacks like this, what the civilian couldn't: that Element Two wasn't trying to defeat the entire group. They were just putting down suppressing fire so that Element One could come through the back and even the odds.

A sharp tap on the shoulder made her jump, and she glared up at Smoke. He wasn't looking at her, but instead to the other side of the loading bay. Even as she followed his gaze, there was a sharp exclamation over the headsets.

_"Element Two, this is Zulu; we've got a couple focusing their fire and heading our way. Looks like they're making a break for it, any assistance would…_"

But even before one of the two VegaSec officers of Zulu Pair could finish his request for help, he fell silent and Kade could see why. She and Jackson were placed with the majority of the element in the middle alleyway, with two pairs on the exit to their right. The left, the smallest, only had two officers watching it, as it was a limiting passage providing the officers better cover than elsewhere.

But it seemed two Primaries had realised that VegaSec's tactics were purely stalling, and had broken away from the main body of their allies to make a push for that escape. Their fire was heavy, focused. Even as Kade watched a phaser blast felled the officer reporting in; it looked like his comrade was too pinned down by strong fire to even move.

"_This is Zulu_." A different voice to the one before, most likely the pinned officer. "_We've got two making a getaway; repeat, two escapees_."

The element leader jerked his head, turning briefly away from the firefight. "_Acknowledged, Zulu. Yankee, move to…_"

"_Negative_." Kade hadn't even realised she was moving by the time she spoke. Without thinking she had leaped to her feet and grabbed Smoke by the elbow, and pelted it full-speed down the alleyway in the direction away from the loading bay. "_This is Jackson and Kade; we're in pursuit_."

She ignored the frantic questions from Smoke behind her; paid only cursory attention to the radio chatter a few seconds later as Element One emerged from the back of the warehouse to help pin down the remaining Primaries. She had watched carefully throughout the briefing earlier, paid close attention to the local area. The raid preparation had been overly confident in their ability to contain the insurgents, and obviously expected the entire combat to take place inside the warehouse.

Kade, as such, had prepared for other possible outcomes, and memorised the map of the surrounding area. So there was a yelp of surprise from Smoke behind her, half-running, half being dragged, as she took a quick right turn down a small, tight alleyway that almost had them running sideways to fit.

Smoke finally pulled free of her grip, shaking it off with slight annoyance. "Kade, what in the hell do you think…"

"If you actually want to get involved here, just shut up, follow me, and be ready to shoot someone. And be careful, I think the two we're after actually know how to aim." She didn't look back, just carried on sprinting full speed down the alleyway.

"Do you even know where we're going?"

Smoke let out another noise of surprise as she, without warning, turned right again, this time into a wider alleyway. Ahead, it could be seen that this passageway led to another alley, and memory told her it was the one the two perps were fleeing down.

"…good… must have been heading straight for the main road… would have seen them if they'd come this way." Kade's breath came more raggedly now as her lungs began to burn, but still she put on an extra burst of speed. Behind her, Smoke had quietened down.

As they hurtled around the next corner, ahead they could see two figures frantically running towards the road, some fifteen metres ahead of them. Kade heard the sound of boots skidding on concrete from behind her as Smoke either fell or stopped but she didn't pause to check as she tightened her grip on her rifle and lowered her head.

She was gaining on them, years of training and warfare seeing her as far more athletic than the average civilian. But Kade's advantage lay in the sprint, not the extended chase, and as the air continued to burn in her lungs, she knew she was going to have to close the gap.

Then a bolt of phaser fire flashed right past her, making her almost jump out of her skin and giving her another burst of speed-gifting adrenaline. It also arced down the alleyway and hit, with disturbing accuracy, one of the fleeing insurgents in the back.

He dropped, and the shot was enough to make the other one stumble and falter, glancing back. Although he carried on running, not pausing to help his companion, he lost some valuable ground, not to mention momentum, from the hesitation.

But even as he and Kade both hurtled on further forwards, the latter having to leap over the body of the fallen runner, the alleyway ended in front of him and broke out into the wide, busy main road.

Within seconds Kade was there too, and suddenly confronted with a thousand and one new challenges. The pedestrians were few enough that she wasn't going to lose him in the crowd, but too numerous for another risky distance shot. The traffic wasn't particularly heavy down on the ground level of Lyrae, but the hovercars which were reaching these depths were swooping through the air without much care for traffic laws or heads.

And her target was hurtling down the middle of the road, ducking under hovercars passing overhead and sidestepping past other pedestrians in the way. He was running with focus now, not just fleeing wildly. He probably had a plan, a bolt-hole, or some backup, and the cop in Kade knew to not let him reach his destination, whatever it was.

Now she was closer she could see her target more clearly. Apparently human, male, rather large and bulky. These factors were giving him more trouble than she, with her smaller frame, in the busy street, where dodging was now a factor.

The horns of hovercars having to pull up to avoid taking someone's head off, the shrieks of passers-by as they quickly realised a man with a phaser was being pursued by an armed woman in VegaSec armour, all flew past Kade's attention as she tried to pull up those desperate, extra hints of speed.

But although she was gaining slowly, ever so slowly, she could feel the ache in her muscles increase, feel the slight numbness in her booted feet as they pounded on the concrete road, and knew that she would lose her momentum and energy before she caught up.

And so it was resolved by that old and familiar friend of the law enforcement officer, that factor which always had to be relied on in the face of overwhelming odds, that proof that the universe would sometimes favour of the good guys. Sheer, dumb luck.

One hovercar, a fancy make she wouldn't imagine being this close to Lyrae's ground level happily or legally, was hanging lower in the air than most others, hurtling down the road towards them with speed. Kade didn't even notice this, far behind as she was, but her target did.

By the time he realised the hovercar wasn't going to pull up enough to let him duck it was too late to dodge to the side. And so the running man did the only thing he could do if he liked his head still on his shoulders; dove straight forward onto the concrete.

The hovercar whooshed over his head as he hit the ground, and Kade allowed herself a brief, ragged smirk of victory as she moved to avoid the hovercar and picked up speed. But before she could get there he was clambering to his feet. The air burned in her lungs, her muscles ached, and she didn't think she could face much more of a pursuit, burdened as she was in the heavy armour.

She glanced down at her rifle, and with a deep sinking resignation, hefted it unhappily. Then she clutched it by the barrel and threw it and herself forwards.

The armour rattled around her as she hit the ground, absorbing most of the impact but making her elbows smart. Both hands came up to keep a tight grip on the rifle as it was flung forwards. The man was only a matter of feet in front of her by now, beyond the reach of her hands, beyond the reach of her rifle.

But not beyond the reach of the gamble as the rifle's strap went flying forwards and barely, just barely, hooked around his foot.

There was a colossal _smack _as the man went head over heels and sprawled on the floor, dragging her forwards a few more inches with his own momentum. His hands went out to take the impact but his jaw still smashed on the concrete as he went down.

She was on her feet in an instant, lunging for him and pulling out the cuffs. "You're… under… arrest," she managed to pant as there was the satisfying _click _as she restrained his arms behind him, though he didn't struggle.

Then, her target secure, she almost collapsed on top of him from sheer exhaustion as the adrenaline finally ebbed away.

* * *

"Nuh-uh. No running away for you today. No more, 'least." Smoke waggled his phaser pistol at the groaning man he'd bound tightly. The stun blast he'd been hit with was beginning to wear off, and he tried to get to his feet. He failed, limbs flailing ineffectively as he lay on the ground.

Smoke paused a moment to wipe his brow clear of sweat. He couldn't hear anything down here. No sounds of the fire-fight at the warehouse, and aside from the occasional hoot of traffic, no noises from the main street – or Kade and her target – could be heard.

"So. What's your name?" Smoke stepped back to perch on a crate left abandoned in the alleyway, loosening his armour around the neck.

The man spat on the ground. "I know the procedure. Not answering any questions until you've got me back in a cell and I've got a lawyer."

"Oooh, so you've been here before. Must be all accustomed to this running away from cops, then. That'll go down well." Smoke grinned, leaning forwards. "Unfortunately, you're also several kinds of wrong. That procedure might fly with VegaSec, but I don't work in this shit hole." He tapped the comm badge attached to the left breast of his body armour.

The man's eyes widened very slightly. "You still all have procedures."

"Yep, but it's all in a Starfleet holding cell, and the punishments for interfering in our investigations is so much higher… and laws do go changing for some of us goldshirts. So, in fact, I'm allowed to question you right here, right now, and you being all difficult and not assisting with my investigation is in itself a crime. As of…" Smoke paused, eyes flickering skywards as his lips moved silently. "The Fed Council's vote two weeks ago? Wonderful new acts of legislation. Did you know, after some criminal investigations these days you'll spend longer in prison for refusing to answer questions than you would for the crime itself. Funny, huh?"

There was a pause, then the man shuffled upright, back against the alley wall. "Jasric Davv."

"What, your mother didn't like you or something? So, Davv, what was going on back in that there warehouse VegaSec just busted?" Smoke folded his arms across his chest, phaser still in his grasp.

"You seem to know." Davv wriggled a little, then accepted his wristcuffs weren't going to disappear any time soon, no matter how hard he wished it. "Fine. It was a meeting of the Primaries."

"About what?"

"I don't know." There was a pause, and then the man sighed. "I'm not actually a member of The Primaries."

"Just a poor, innocent bystander caught in the wrong place at the wrong time who happened to shoot a VegaSec officer? Such maligned individuals often fall afoul of the law, it must be said." Smoke nodded sagely. "Explain."

"I've only been on Lyrae for two days. I'm an engineer on board the freighter _Northern Star_. I have nothing to do with The Primaries."

"Except for being in the middle of one of their meetings. You're really making this like pulling teeth, Davv, it's beginning get all boring." Smoke tilted his head to one side and glanced up thoughtfully again. "Huh. Pulling teeth."

"Oh, please. The psychotic Federation state might have given you stompers yet more laws on how to oppress people, but torture's never going to be legal," Davv scoffed.

"No, you're right." Smoke nodded again. "It won't be. Kinda quiet in this alleyway, huh?"

Davv met his gaze. "You're bluffing."

"Maybe. Keep being all coy and you'll find out."

Davv sighed. "The _Northern Star _came in two days ago with a couple of crates of deliveries for the Primaries. It's not the first one we've made… perhaps two other shipments in the last six weeks, something like that. It was the job of me and the co-pilot – the one who just hi-tailed it down the alleyway and left me behind, the bastard – to drop these deliveries off to this warehouse. It was the designated meeting point. I didn't know until I got here it was a massive gathering, damn idiots."

"Keeping a lot of people around at an illicit drop-off ain't the smartest thing I've heard." Smoke nodded sympathetically. "What were these deliveries?"

"Look… they're nothing to do with me… I don't nick 'em, I just pass them on, and besides, I didn't know what they were until the crate got opened in front of me last time…"

Smoke raised an eyebrow. "I'm not here for the suspense."

"Starfleet rifles. Nothing to do with me. Or my skipper. Or the bastard running away at full pelt. We just get the deliveries, then ship them from A to B. We don't steal your professional ordinance." Davv looked legitimately afraid at this point, giving Smoke a small dose of satisfaction that his efforts were working and that the populace were aware of how darkly Starfleet looked upon people who hindered the war effort.

"Then where do you get them from?"

"My ship works for a man named Vincent Black. He's pretty much in charge of any and all smuggling in this sector. And sometimes pirating. Anything which requires a ship and takes you off-world, that's Black's beat. He gets the crates in. We ship them to Vega."

"And where does he get them 'in' to. Where does he work out of?"

"There's an old abandoned mining facility off the gas giant Xi Cyg VII. Got shut down about five years back from resource allocation. Don't think it had anything to do with helping the war effort, so, like pretty much everything else non-functional, it got cut. Black's moved in there, claimed it as his own, and set up his little base there." Davv shrugged. "We're usually doing a different job! Some legit transport for a legit merchant! We just stop by Xi Cyg because… well, if you want to operate on any gig that's going to get you more pay than peanuts, you need to be friends with Vincent Black. And to be friends with Black, you need to do some jobs, like he says."

"Like shipping Starfleet phaser rifles."

"Like stopping for a drink at Xi Cyg and being told by your skipper that we're sticking a couple of crates in the hidden compartments and have to drop them off at Vega. We were coming here anyway to transport a load of _fertiliser_, for God's sake. This is just a side show!"

"Who's your skipper?" Smoke leaned forward, phaser pistol in hand. Davv shook his head, and Smoke sprang to his feet, grabbing the man by the front of his shirt. "Listen, slimy. I got you, you can bet your ass my partner's got your buddy, and I got the name of your ship. I can come right back to you if I figure you're lying on any of this. And some of your fat insurgent friends back there will probably give me the information you don't. So you want to make it out of here with only some short prison time, then now ain't the moment to start getting cold feet and pondering notions of loyalty. _Who _is your skipper? Else I'll just look it up on the registry for the _Northern Star_."

Davv struggled to get back, and Smoke released him with an eye-roll. "…Captain Talia Theron. Most likely to be hanging around the bar at the space port… waiting for us to run in like lunatics and tell her the whole deal went south, funnily enough." He snorted humourlessly.

"Do you know where Black gets his weaponry from?" Smoke asked, folding his arms across his chest.

"Not a clue. We're not even smugglers by trade… we just do whatever job comes our way. You know what the Borg have done to _pay _in this area? Nobody's shipping produce. Everyone's running to home space, where the trade tariffs are tighter, but high cost beats getting assimilated." Davv shook his head. "It's just desperate."

* * *

"Let's look at this objectively," Kade said as Smoke sat opposite her, his bottled drink of something local and suspect a contrast to his still crisp and neat Starfleet uniform. A uniform which, as for her, had him sticking out like a sore thumb in their locale, a diner around the corner from the VegaSec station filled with off-duty officers and those fleeing wildly from the bureaucracy of the law.

"And you said this wasn't going to be fun," Smoke sighed, having a swig of his drink.

Kade looked disapprovingly at him. She herself had just opted for a hot coffee and a sandwich, whereas her partner was still glancing around in anticipation of his steak. "You'd never believe there was rationing in parts of the galaxy, the way you eat."

"Not for us." Smoke waggled the bottle at her. "So we might as well eat, drink, and be merry."

"For tomorrow we die?"

"No. Just 'cause we can." Another gulp of beer. "What's there to look at, anyway? Why don't we just get a ship to go barging into this old mining base and arrest everyone there on a charge of being too scummy by half?"

"If Starfleet could spare a whole starship on this investigation, do you think we'd be involved?"

"Not investigation. Just plain old-fashioned arrest. 'Give up or the nice men will shoot you'. It'll take a day, tops." Smoke waved a hand dismissively.

"Perhaps, if we had direct evidence that the weapons were coming from this base, that this Black was getting them imported, and what his sources were, then we might, _might _be able to get a nearby ship to come in and handle the arrest. But what do we have? The half-baked tale of a smuggling ship's engineer. A tale extracted under slightly dim circumstances, I might add." Kade spared drinking time to give her partner a brief, dark glare.

"It's legal." Smoke looked rather disinterested as he glanced over towards the diner's counter. "SSI's been given all kinds of fun extra powers."

Kade leaned forward, hands on the table. "SSI has been given extra powers in criminal enforcement to compensate for our lack of manpower. It's so that we can get investigations moving without having to wait for bureaucracy which could take months while attention is on the outside. Here, we _had _that infrastructure present and willing to help with VegaSec. There was no need to hold a spot interrogation which included torture threats."

Smoke shrugged. "If I hadn't gone and done that, right now we'd still be fighting for authority over this prisoner with Verne in the interview rooms instead of kicking back with a beer and a steak and congratulating ourselves on a job well done."

"Because the universe knows _that _couldn't wait. Look, Jackson. You were a fighter pilot before you came here. But I've been doing security work like this for a long time. I know how it all works an awful lot better than you do."

"Wrong." Smoke took a swig of his beer. "You know how it _used _to work. When we held the comm-badge high and the symbol alone was enough to have people surrendering to our justice. But war's been changing people and the galaxy don't work the way it used to. So _we_can't work the way we used to."

There was a pause as the Trill took a long, calming breath, before she looked Smoke in the eye. "All right, then, Jackson. How do you propose we do this?" Her voice was tight, well-measured.

Smoke smirked. "Simple. We go down to the space dock and arrest this Captain Theron, and interrogate her for what we need to get a starship on the case."

"And what if she doesn't know the information we need?" Kade stirred her coffee idly, keeping her expression firmly fixed as one of mild, polite curiosity.

There was a pause as Smoke thought. "Then we get ourselves to this old mining base and question Vincent Black."

"What if he doesn't want to be questioned? I imagine that if he's half as influential as Davv seemed to think he is, he'll have a large body of heavily armed men around him. How do we make him co-operate?"

Smoke snorted. "We call for the old backup, of course. An even larger body of men, who can be a shade more persuasive with all of them phasers."

"From where?" As Smoke hesitated a flicker of triumph crossed her face. "Exactly. Much as you seem to enjoy it, we can't run around all guns blazing. We might have the authority to do that, but just because we _can _do it doesn't mean we _should_. These new powers are here to grease the workings when they're slow because we don't have the resources to be able to wait. They're not a guideline to be adhered to in every situation. Some situations require a more delicate and diplomatic touch."

The pilot rolled his eyes. "So we go up and ask Black where he got his weapons from, all polite like, and to come quietly, if it's not too much trouble?"

"That would be absolutely idiotic." Kade paused as a waitress bustled over, tray in hand to deliver Smoke's charred steak. "I have a much, much better idea than that."

* * *

"Talia Theron, Captain of the freighter _Northern Star_?"

"…mmph? What do you want?"

"We hear you're recruiting crewmembers. Where do we apply?"


	4. Part 3: Northern Star

**Part 3: Northern Star**

It always felt to Smoke as if a ship around him was slowing down, in both speed and time, during the short seconds between initiating the jump to warp and the vessel actually obeying his command. The _Northern Star _seemed to hang in space for a moment, and even the other vessels still in the transport routes over Vega appeared to slow down before the lurch of acceleration – then there was nothing but the stars streaming past.

"There we go," he declared, leaning back in the pilot's seat and resting his hands behind his head. "Course set for the Xi Cyg system. We should be there by tomorrow evening at Warp 3. Still… if we bumped up to Warp 5 then we might make it by morning."

"No way." Kade leaned in the doorway, arms folded across her chest. "The warp core was rumbling during the entire power-up. The anti-matter injector coils have taken so much of a battering that there's hardly anything getting into the M/ARA until that piping is replaced."

"Ain't it your job to make sure this thing stays all intact, whatever I put it through?"

"Isn't it your job to not be an irresponsible hack?"

"Isn't it my job to make these decisions without your bickering?" Captain Talia Theron lifted her head from where she had appeared to be snoozing in the co-pilot's seat. "I said Warp 3. We stick to Warp 3."

Kade gave Smoke a supercilious smirk. "Don't want the ship shaking apart, after all."

"Oh, you'd cope, I'm sure." Theron sounded rather bored, putting her feet up on the de-activated control panels on her side of the cockpit. "But the last thing I want is to have to deal with Vincent Black first thing in the morning. Especially if I've also got to then arm-wrestle some damn Binar for ship parts."

There was a pause as the two SSI partners exchanged glances, both taken aback by an intervention that did not confirm the righteousness of either of them. Smoke looked over at the _Northern Star's _captain. "Last thing at night is better?"

"Nope, but I can probably be drunk when it happens." Theron popped an eye open, then tilted her head to one side, appearing to think for a moment. "Tarrick? I think the port side inertial dampeners are slightly off. You might want to take a look at them."

Kade, or 'Tarrick' as she had introduced herself in this undercover persona, much to Smoke's confusion, looked suspiciously at the _Northern Star_'s captain. "If you want me to go, you don't have to make…"

"The conflicting gravity makes for a slight rumble down the left side of the cockpit," Theron interrupted. She didn't look up as Kade reached for the left bulkhead, unconvinced. "I've owned this ship for ten years, greaser, I know my own machine. I'm telling you to go check up on it, not to stand there and tell me I'm wrong."

Smoke sniggered when the cockpit door slid shut behind Kade. He glanced at Theron, who was waking up a little more, lifting feet off the console. "You know she'll probably go blow the ship up for you calling her a 'greaser'."

"I've dealt with pissy mechanics for as long as I've had the ship. I'm probably a better engineer with the _Star_'s tech than anyone whose last formal training was the Academy in a past life." Theron sat up, stretching. She was a small woman, silver-haired even though she didn't look older than her late twenties. "Though, speaking of the Academy…" Her voice trailed off, and she quirked an eyebrow at Smoke.

The pilot shifted in his seat. "What about it?"

"Whose daughter did you sleep with to get drummed out of the Fleet?" Theron twisted in her seat, looking at Smoke with curiosity.

He gave a short snort of forced amusement, not looking at her as he fiddled with controls. "What puts it in your mind that was what happened?"

"We've got the mother of all wars going on. You've got to have pissed somebody off personally to have been drummed out of Starfleet with the Borg knocking on our door. And don't try to tell me you're not an old Fleet pilot. You've been handling the old girl here like she's a fighter jock's machine. And you don't get a nickname like 'Smoke' unless it's a call-sign."

He leaned back in the pilot's chair, gaze roaming around the cockpit. The _Northern Star _was an older model of freighter, pre-Dominion War, and thus harkened to the days when civilian ships could still rely on being swift and efficient instead of needing an armoured hull or even weaponry to be able to do business. She was sleek, a very obvious classic Federation design, probably not significantly larger than a _Danube_-class runabout.

Still, it was obvious that the Borg Conflict had not been kind to her, if only because it hadn't been kind to her captain's wallet. Kade had taken one look at the freighter while she was docked at Lyrae and asked how recently certain engine components had been replaced. The response had been vague enough that it was clear the _Northern Star _desperately needed some expensive maintenance that couldn't be afforded. Hence, theoretically, the smuggling of illegal produce on behalf of a local crime lord.

But these thoughts could not be allowed to distract him from making sure his cover was secure. He and Kade had spent an hour coming up with identities that would do the job, mostly revolving around where they had fictionally met and what they would know about the fictional other. For anything else, his partner had told him, it was best to keep things as close to reality as possible without being suspicious, particularly for someone as inexperienced as him in undercover work.

So lying didn't sound like the best option when Theron had him pretty much over a barrel.

He sighed. "I didn't sleep with anyone."

"Well, that's not a worthwhile dishonourable discharge at all," Theron chuckled. "I guess you really did piss someone off."

Smoke kept his gaze fixed on the stars shooting past them at warp speed. He'd figured undercover work to be a doss, whatever Kade had to say; he hadn't anticipated being asked about subjects he was unhappy to tell the truth on even to people he _wasn't _lying to.

"Yep," he said at last. "It aggravates no end of folk on the Flight Status Board if you go and get half your squadron and several decks of your ship wiped out in what's labelled an ego-fest."

There was a silence, and when he did tilt his head to look at Theron, her expression was now thoughtful, apologetic, but curious. "What happened?"

"I had a choice, and I went and picked wrong," Smoke said, before sighing again. "I reasoned taking four fighters against a Borg ship in a sneak attack might mean blowing it up before my ship and my full squadron got into an extended, death-laden battle with it. Instead, it got the other three killed and made the following extended, death-laden battle even longer and deathier." He folded his arms across his chest, gaze going back to the cockpit viewport. "So my flight status got revoked and the only thing I'm any good for is being a pilot. Hence being out here."

The most damning thing of all was that it was almost the complete truth. In fact, only his commission status was where he had given an outright lie; Smoke knew, had it not been for the existence of SSI and their desperation for any officers who fell within a stone's throw of security training, he would have been left out in the cold. Although a discharge would not have likely occurred, the menial labour and duties that would have been found for him in Starfleet's need for basic manpower and unwillingness to release anybody in a time of war would have likely seen him going AWOL.

"I'm sorry," Theron said. "I guess the Fleet aren't interested in what your intentions were if the results go badly. Sounds like an awful lot of blame for one screw-up."

"I went against procedure." Smoke shook his head. "I don't know if things would have been much different if I'd gone and followed the regs, but the way they did go was somethin' of a cluster-fuck and somebody needed to be blamed for it. Not saying I was a scapegoat, but…"

"It sounds like it."

Smoke closed his eyes sharply, fighting back a brief stab of a memory of death screams over a comm channel. "I didn't give you the whole story, now, did I," he said, a little more tartly than he intended, and bit back a subsequent curse. Wasn't he meant to be cool, calm, collected, and acting his ass off? Kade would never let him forget it if he screwed their cover on the first flight.

"Anyhow," he continued briskly, now turning to face her. Fortunately, Theron didn't seem to have taken offence. Irritatingly, she was instead looking rather sympathetic, and so he pressed on firmly. "You mentioned you've had the _Star _for ten years. How come? I mean, you can't be more than… thirty?"

Horror briefly swirled around his stomach as the words escaped his lips, personal rather than professional this time. In his time of fear he had stumbled into one of man's greatest traps – a discussion with a woman about her age.

Theron instead chuckled and shook her head. "She was my father's," she said. "He was a merchant, owned a big old cargo hauler whose last job was taking supplies to Starfleet ships in the Dominion War. When she went up in flames thanks to Cardassian attackers, along with my mother, he bought the _Northern Star_, fresh off the production line. Used her to wrap up the loose ends of his business in the post-War years, but… he didn't have the heart for travel with my mother gone." Theron looked briefly wistful. "So he retired about ten years ago and I took over. Doing work he wouldn't entirely approve of, but… he lived in different times."

"And times, they are a-changing." Smoke nodded solemnly. "I lost my ma in the Dominion War too," he added, and then immediately silenced himself as he realised he wasn't sure why he'd told her that. It was a rule Kade had drilled into him several times, both for its importance and to make sure he was listening in the first place: never offer more information than you need to, and _never_volunteer personal facts.

"Fleet?" Theron tilted her head at him, and Smoke nodded. "Yeah, I figured it'd be a family thing. You don't strike me as the type to sign up through, no offence, civic duty."

Smoke gave a short, sharp laugh. "Beats life on a farm by quite some way!"

"Oh, God, the accent's real?" Theron chuckled briefly. "I've got a regular cowboy as my pilot, then…"

"My original call-sign was 'Tex' at the Academy. Then I went and overheated my engines one day… was meant to be doin' a post-flight cool-down, couldn't see jack on the flight deck… pilots ain't original." David 'Smoke' Jackson gave her a brief, toothy grin, while internally cursing his reckless mouth for shooting off more personal information and hoping that she didn't ask him what his real name was. He and Kade had agreed that he would just be 'Smoke' for simplicity.

Where 'Tarrick' came from, he had no idea.

"Military fighter jocks. The greatest of wits." Theron shook her head, briefly reminding him of Kade – but where Kade would have been biting, the freighter pilot spoke wryly, soft amusement taking any sting out. "Well, cowboy, so long as you don't do the same to my engines, I think you'll get on famously with me and the _Star_. Though she's harder to please than I am."

"I'm persistent." Smoke gave her a lopsided grin, winking.

"And seem to have experience, if Tarrick's any guess." Theron paused, a slight frown crossing her face. "You two aren't…"

Smoke stared at her for a moment, his brain first unable to grasp what she was suggesting, then unable to reconcile it with reality. "What… oh, God, no!" He didn't have to act up the shocked expression. "If I went and stuck it in her it'd probably go drop off from frostbite!" Again, he cursed his runaway mouth as he attempted to clamp onto the words before they escaped, but to no avail. This time, though, it was for coarse words he didn't want to be flinging in Theron's direction.

But she laughed instead, and he felt the knot of worry which had existed in his stomach long before the 'undercover', long before coming to SSI – had in fact last been absent one morning before a routine CAP on the USS _Venture_– begin to slowly, gently unwind.

"It was worth checking," Theron sniggered. "Couldn't tell if you two hated each other or were screwing."

"I prefer to not be arguing when in bed," Smoke said, still looking shocked at the implication. "And to avoid that with her, I'd need to be bringing a gag along. Which is a mite too kinky for my tastes."

"Funny." Theron looked thoughtful as she stood, stretching her arms again. "I'd have thought a guy like you would be up for anything." She returned his earlier wink as he looked indignant, and patted the back of his chair. "So, for now, start with being up for watching the navigation computer for the next hour or so, will you, to make sure it doesn't drift off the initial course? It's been temperamental lately."

"Going to get some sleep?" Smoke asked, glancing over as she padded towards the cockpit door.

"I'm going to need a full night if I'm going to be drunk enough to face Vincent Black tomorrow without throwing up." Theron paused by the open door, looking back at him. "Just try to not break the ship for an hour, cowboy, then you should hit the sack too. You know where the bunks are."

Then she was gone, leaving Smoke on his own in a dark cockpit and blinking with confusion as he ran her words over in his head, eventually asking of the empty room: "Mine or yours?"

But, of course, the silent cockpit didn't answer. Despite the _Northern Star_'s erratic maintenance, once she had gone to warp, there was precious little that needed to be done. And Smoke did try to keep himself busy; ambling about, checking every single control panel to ensure that nothing had gone awry. The engines were ticking over, the inertial dampener problems Theron had mentioned appeared to have been fixed by Kade – if, indeed, they had ever existed in the first place – and environmental controls were happy. Most important of all, they were still on course, maintaining direction and speed, and it seemed there was little to nothing he needed to be there for.

Theron had, nevertheless, been quite clear in telling him to keep an eye on the navicom, and so Smoke dutifully sat in the pilot's chair, feet up on the de-activated console, until he decided that the ship wasn't going to veer off-course and it was probably time to go to bed.

The corridors of the _Northern Star_had clearly been once bright and shiny, of obvious Federation construct, and harkening back to happier years. But time, disrepair, and the years turning darker had provided a much more enclosed atmosphere on the slightly cramped freighter, causing a need to squint when walking the halls, and to keep an eye out for dangling cables or loose conduits.

The bunks were at the back of the ship, behind the large cargo bay, and so he had to pass that area to get to bed. On his way he became aware of a loud clanking noise coming from what sounded like a corner of the freight compartment, causing him to pause for thought. Theron had gone to sleep. He was by himself, and thus knew exactly where he was – that being, not in the cargo bay making a lot of noise. It had to be Kade.

Surely she'd have turned in already?

He stepped through the door onto the high metal gantry above the cargo bay to be greeted with, now there were no bulkheads blocking the sound out, an even greater cacophony of clanging.

The cargo bay was mostly empty, anything the _Northern Star _had been set to ship being sold off at Vega. The return to Xi Cyg would provide new goods, new cargo, and probably a new destination.

But it wasn't entirely empty, and this was what drew his attention. For, in a far corner, near the access hatchway which would expose them to the elements – or lack thereof – was a small shuttle, perhaps the size of that which could be found on a _Defiant _class, though certainly far less sophisticated. It was also incredibly battered, and looked as if it had been judiciously gutted by an angry engineer.

Said angry engineer – though how Kade knew anything of mechanics, Smoke had absolutely no idea – was still present, stuck head-first in the open nose of the shuttle as far as her ankles. Whatever she was doing in there was doubtless the cause all of this racket.

"Hey!" It was about all Smoke could think of as he leaned over the railing, unable to remember exactly what he should call Kade except for, most obviously, 'Kade', and just knowing that he wanted the sound to stop.

Of course, he couldn't be heard over the sound of the bashing, and so Smoke, muttering obscenities all the way, strode over to the ladder and climbed down from the gantry. Storming across the cargo bay, he grabbed Kade by one ankle, about the only body part particularly exposed, and gave it a hard tug.

"Hey!"

For his troubles, the foot he didn't have a hold on snapped upwards in a kick would have hit him if he didn't dart back with a pilot's reflexes. "Watch it!"

There was a pause from inside the shuttle, the racket ceasing. "Ja… Smoke?"

"Wow. We're really good at this." Smoke rubbed his eyes as Kade slid haphazardly out of the opening. Her hair was everywhere, the dirty jumpsuit she'd donned even more filthy, and for once to him she finally looked as if the stick up her arse had been, if not removed, then at least briefly suspended. "Want to call me 'Lieutenant' and then seal the deal?"

"Shut up," Kade hissed, staggering to her feet. "There's such a thing as subtlety, you know… _Smoke_."

"It's fine. Theron's gone to bed, 'least an hour ago." Smoke shrugged. "Though I can't be guaranteeing you didn't wake her up with your racket. What _are _you doing? What _is _this piece of crap?"

"This?" Kade glanced back at the shuttle, as if only just noticing the craft as a complete vessel, rather than a set of components. "I found this. It's got the same registry as the _Northern Star_, I think they're a complete set. Completely fallen into disrepair."

"But what _is _it? Why a random shuttle?" Smoke walked the length of the small vessel. At closer inspection, it didn't seem to be in that terrible condition. Mostly neglect, he figured. Recharge certain cells, hone the engines. Replace perhaps a few components that had died. "This thing don't look like it's been touched for five years."

"Sounds about right," Kade commented, wiping her hands down on her jumpsuit. "It's not uncommon for freighters like the _Star _to have an attached shuttle. Good for a neutral rendezvous, or docking at a base which doesn't have a berth for a larger ship. Sometimes the transit of smaller cargo. That kind of thing."

"So… why are you working on it?" Smoke folded his arms across his chest, still peering at the shuttle.

"Ought to earn my keep somehow. There's not much I can do to the _Star _without having the replacement components." Kade shook her head. "Trying to do anything else is just getting depressing. She's a really nice freighter; she deserves better care than this." The Trill patted the panelling on the nose of the shuttle. "She also deserves a better engineer than I."

"Yeah, which of your nine lives gave you that little gem of a talent?" Smoke glanced over at her, raising an eyebrow.

"None." She tossed her hyperspanner into the open toolkit on the deck. "Bruen was many things – a soldier, a politician, a writer – but not a mechanic. That's actually a talent from Alya." Kade gave a small, tight, wry smile. "I wasn't born a goldshirt, you know."

"Academy courses?" He walked over to the shuttle, tugging carefully on the hatch and then opening it up, looking inside. The interior was stark, metallic, perhaps in need of some upholstery, and hardly big enough to swing a cat – but it looked functional enough.

"My father ran a mechanic's shop back on Trill," Kade explained. "I grew up around machinery. I might not know how to fix a warp core that's in disrepair, but I certainly know how to handle basic maintenance." She patted the shuttle on the nose as he stepped back out. "And how to refurbish a small craft like this."

"So what can she do?" Smoke asked, looking down the hull evaluatingly. "I mean, in that… what's she supposed to do, and what is it she _actually _does? You being half an engineer and all."

"That still requires more mental exercise than you can cope with in a day, Jackson," Kade retorted. "And the answer is… not much. Vacuum and atmospheric flight, no on-board transporters, no on-board replicators, low-powered warp drive capable of no more than Warp 2 and I reckon she'd be pretty shaky even at that speed…"

"Probably shouldn't be calling me that." Smoke didn't look at her as he continued to pace up and down.

"So I have to call you 'Smoke'?" Kade arched an eyebrow dubiously. "Doing that makes me feel like a pilot or an idiot – which is effectively the same thing."

"And? I have to go calling you 'Tarrick'," Smoke pointed out.

She gave a small, enigmatic smile that he missed. "That's perfectly all right. It _is _my name."

"What?" He looked up sharply at this, appearing deeply confused.

"I had a name before I was joined with Kade, you know," she went on, running a hand along the smooth hull of the little shuttle and still wearing the gentle smile. "Just as I wasn't born into a goldshirt."

"So you were once upon a time Alya Tarrick, who spent time after school at her pa's mechanic shop?" Smoke blinked, the idea still obviously needing time to quite sink into his brain. "I can't picture it."

Kade shrugged, the grin slowly fading. "Different times," she murmured.

"Helluva," Smoke agreed, shaking his head. "So how many lifetimes _have _you had, then? There's this Bruen fella, and…?"

"And Alya."

"And…?"

"And nothing," Kade said at last, not looking at him. She crouched in front of the open panel she'd been stuck in when he'd arrived and lifted the metal hull plate up to begin to reattach it. "I'm the second host."

"Huh. That's gotta suck," he declared eventually. "I mean, probably sucks less than being the _first _host… then you're just a fella with a slug inside of you, which is all kinds of ridiculous. Still, as number two, trying to beat that guy…"

Kade stood abruptly, turning to face him. "Did you _want _something, Jackson?"

He took a step back, lifting his hands. "Nope. Just wanted you to quit with all of that bashing and banging. And to not call me Jackson."

"Fine. Smoke. I've put the panel back on, I'm done bashing the nose frame into shape, so no more noise tonight." She folded her arms across her chest. "Anything else?"

Smoke grinned toothily. "Hey, how's about a sandwich if you're being co-operative…?"

For a moment he thought she was going to throw the hyperspanner at him and recoiled visibly, even though she didn't move, didn't bat an eyelid. There was something about her – a brief flash of the eyes, perhaps – that let him know she was, this time, _really _angry.

Then she turned, and was stuck-up Kade once again, albeit perhaps more tired than usual. "I have more work to do here. Maybe you can go be annoying somewhere else. Preferably on your own. I'm sure you'd manage to be irritating even without a crowd."

Smoke opened his mouth, a hundred and one choice phrases popping to mind of how to retaliate, each of them more venomous than the last. And then he saw that she'd turned away, and wasn't listening… and realised, with a slightly belittled niggle of annoyance, that he'd been dismissed.

So he did all he could do, really. Left the cargo bay with loud mutterings of insults he was certain she'd could hear… and then headed off to sleep.


	5. Part 4: Xi Cyg

**Part 4: Xi Cyg**

"So lovely for you to join us, Captain Theron. We were wondering if you were even intending to pay us a visit at all."

Smoke looked up from the carrying of a heavy crate through the airlock doorway that now connected the _Northern Star _to Styx Base, his eyes narrowing at the tone of voice in the address. They had arrived hardly ten minutes ago, hefting the minor cargo Theron had brought from Vega onto the rather dark and dingy trading station, and there were already implied threats flying through the air – from their welcoming party, no less.

Theron, to her credit, didn't look perturbed as she turned from her vantage point in the airlock doorway to flash the speaker a winning smile. "I'm surprised to hear that, Zavits. After all, I informed Mister Black of the difficulties beyond my control I encountered on Vega, and he was rather sympathetic of my plight, not to mention offered me every support. You have my sympathies on falling from his favour so much that he didn't inform you of this."

'Zavits', a portly humanoid gentleman in an ill-fitting suit standing pompously in the corridor, gave a small _harrumph _of irritation suggesting he didn't know how to respond. And even as Theron spoke, she waved a hand discreetly to Smoke that made it clear she didn't need his intervention, and could handle the matter perfectly well by herself. With a grumble, the pilot shrugged his shoulders to relieve some of the ache of heavy carrying, and stepped past her through the airlock to head back to the _Northern Star_'s cargo bay.

Kade was standing just beyond, the last crate in her arms, and cocked an eyebrow at his dark expression. "Problems already?" Despite the body language looking as casual as one could be when carrying a heavy container, he could detect the note of paranoid concern in her voice.

"Just some uppity lackey who seems to be thinkin' he can push us 'round just 'cause… hell, I don't know, and I don't rightly care, neither." Smoke gave another shrug, this one to push off his own burgeoning irritation. "The Cap's not taking none of his bull, least, and is happily driving him 'round like a Type I."

"Mmm. I'm glad you approve of Theron." Kade glanced over his shoulder towards the station, somehow managing to impart an entirely different form of curiosity with the same raised eyebrow. "That's all of the stock from the bay, anyway."

Smoke grumbled again as the Trill pushed the crate into his burlier arms, but fell into step beside her anyway as they both went through the airlock to again enter Styx Base.

The facility was obviously of Federation origin, with those efficient lines that placed construction at some hundred years earlier. But it had also clearly not had much professional attention, not to mention any regular cleaning, for the lights were dim, flickering occasionally, and the surfaces coated in a thin layer of grime from too many mechanical fumes and unhygienic visitors over the years of independent operations.

By now it seemed Theron and Zavits had finished with the courteous greetings and were obviously down to sheer practicalities, the latter poring over the five crates that had been unceremoniously dumped by the two SSI officers in the corridor, the former handing over an inventory PADD.

"…nothing of any particular high quality, but they're packed in the proteins and whatever the replicators would need to break down to keep the food stocks up," Theron was saying. "But it was all I could get my hands on."

"Agricultural planets raising their prices?" Zavits growled.

"The demand's gone through the roof. No idea why." Theron shrugged. "With planets falling and being assimilated, you'd have thought it would mean fewer mouths to feed."

"People are stocking up," Kade piped up, her expression then briefly flickering, as if she hadn't meant to interrupt. But having spoken, with the others now looking at her quizzically, she had no choice but to continue. "With the war. They don't know if the food sources are going to be next. So they're buying them dry in case it's all gone tomorrow."

Zavits just grunted, but pressed his thumb against the PADD regardless. "Guess that means the food convoys are actually going to have guard ships. I guess a raid to nab the goods would just give them less mouths to feed anyway… doing them a favour, really…" He shook his head, then looked up at Theron. "Mister Black said he wanted to see you the moment you got in. He wants to know how things are faring with his friends in the Primaries. 'specially as it now seems to be splashing out to operations like yours."

"Them's the breaks when you sell goods to civil movements." Theron shrugged, not concerned at the 'splashing' she had received on Vega. "I'm also not sure how much I can really tell him, but it's always a pleasure to see Mister Black."

"I'll send some of the boys down to pick up these crates, if you'll just have your new crew keep an eye on them for a quarter hour or so."

"Sure." Theron turned to Smoke and Kade, nodding to them. "You two mind sitting here for a bit babysitting the boxes? Then go ahead and enjoy yourselves. The bars are decent. I'll catch up with you later."

"Uh… how'll we know that the folks comin' down here to pick up the crates are the actual guys?" Smoke winced a little. The last thing he wanted to do was make things harder for Theron with a screw-up like that – it'd draw too much attention to them, after all.

Zavits gave a short laugh, the portly man walking over to Smoke and giving him a hearty clap on the shoulder. It held surprising force for someone of his size, even with his broad stature. "You're new, kid, so you don't get how it works down here. People know the _Northern Star_works for Mister Black. So they're not going to take what's on board her… because then they'd be messing with Mister Black. People don't do that."

Smoke resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he forced a grin at the other man. "Duly noted." He lifted his eyes to Theron, who looked as if she was trying to suppress a laugh. "We'll be fine, Cap. See you at the bar."

Kade waited until the two had stepped around the corner before she gave a loud sigh and flopped onto one of the crates. "I can't believe we're here," she spat. "I'm going to get tetanus just by breathing in this hole."

"It's got character," Smoke stated, his smile now genuine, if a little vicious. "'sides, ain't we here to work, not sit around on our pansy asses whining about the décor?"

"Right now, 'work' consists of sitting and waiting for some flunkeys to come along and collect these goods of dubious origin. So I _am _working."

"It's kinda hard to tell the difference with you often."

"Go die in a ditch, Smoke." Kade scowled. "When we're done here, we're going to need to investigate this base thoroughly. Look around, get a feel for the place. Find out what's where, who's who. Anything could go wrong at any moment, so we need to know our bearings to react and salvage the mission, not to mention our lives."

"And here I was thinking we'd be going and hitting the bar," Smoke sighed.

"We will. Because once we've got a measure of this place, we're going to need a measure of the people. And we're going to have to… investigate. The old-fashioned way."

"Kicking down the door and pepperin' folks with holes 'less they tell us what we wanna know?"

"I was thinking civil conversation and basic manipulation to find out everything we can about this Black, his operations, and his sources for the weapons. Someone's got to know something in this shit-hole." Kade unconsciously wiped her arm, as if the grime in the air had already soiled her jacket sleeve.

"One of these days, you're going to learn how to have fun on an assignment… Tarrick," Smoke said.

"One of these days, your refusal to act like a professional is going to get you, or someone around you, killed," Kade spat. "And on that day, you'll learn that being an idiotic fly-boy isn't the best way to live."

Her words cut unexpectedly through Smoke's gut like a knife. Any witty retorts fled his mind in favour of finding something so equally cutting, equally painful to deliver back, until he realised he didn't know what buttons to push of Kade's like she'd pushed of his…

…unwittingly. She didn't know. It was a stab in the dark. Sometimes, they hit. Still, his tolerance for their banter had promptly gone straight through the floor, and all he could summon as a response and an ending was a weak mutter of "…fuck off, slug-girl."

* * *

The Farlight Bar was, as far as Kade could tell, the central drinking hole of Styx Base for anyone who wanted to be able to actually _see_, or at least _smell _whatever it was they were consuming. She'd passed other bars; dark, dingy affairs that looked like places you went to if you wanted to disappear. Although the Trill would have liked nothing more than to pop out of existence when the alternative was to wander down Styx Base's dingy promenade, she had to find people who wanted to be seen and, more importantly, wanted to talk.

It was a brightly coloured establishment, or had been, now a little muted by age and grime. But at least it made an attempt at cheer, and the sounds from the patrons were more of laughter and casual chatter than dark murmurings, or the thumps of a brawl. So it was with some optimism that she headed to the bar; optimism of getting results, optimism of getting away without catching any diseases, optimism of the first chance in SSI to get to do her job without Smoke's bumbling and 'comedy' in the background.

"What'll it be?" the bartender, obviously a fan of the classics, asked as he popped up to greet her. He was a Bolian, polishing a glass as he spoke, and wore a broad smile. This encouraged Kade immensely. The glasses got cleaned.

"Uh… what have you got?" Kade stumbled a little over the words, fighting back her instinct to order something non-alcoholic. No, she was crewing a smuggling freighter. She had to look like she'd blend in. Which probably meant not asking for any wine, either. "Or, just… a pint of whatever's local?"

The Bolian snorted. "Whatever's local is whatever we get shipped in here. I've got some Skipper's Thumb around here if that sounds good."

"Never had it. Let's give it a try." The Trill hopped up onto the stool as the bartender nodded and went to get the drink.

Kade's eyes scanned the bar as she waited, taking in the atmosphere around her. She wasn't the most experienced investigator in SSI, but she knew what to look for, and in a place like Styx the traditional hurdle of identifying a criminal was no trouble at all. She could quite safely assume that everyone around her was guilty of something.

"Drink up," the Bolian said as he returned with a tall pint glass of a dark brown, foamy liquid.

"'Drink up'?" Kade repeated, one eyebrow arched with amusement as she looked back at him. "If this beer is worth anything, then it should be savoured and enjoyed, not downed and quaffed."

"However you want to drink it, it's worth three credits." The Bolian leaned on the bar, eyes twinkling with humour and, she noted, greed. The greed of a businessman trying to make a living, but still an emotion somewhat alien to the young woman, born and bred in the idealistic Federation.

"Oh… of course." Kade patted pockets down, realising, with a sinking feeling, she'd left the money with Smoke. Which, now she reflected on it, was foolish, and not just for putting all of their eggs in one basket. But their basket was also an irresponsible pilot who'd probably by now have squandered it all on booze and hookers. If he could find any of the latter, which Kade didn't doubt, and not just because of their location – she was confident he could have brought iniquity to the Vatican, if he put his mind to it. "I'm crewing on the _Northern Star_," Kade pressed on. "I don't suppose Captain Theron's set up a tab here?"

"'fraid not. Old Davv used to drink like a fish, and Talia didn't like to encourage him. Made him do things like blow a load of the repairs. She tried once to pay me to _not _give him booze, but didn't fancy matching him drink for drink in price." The Bolian shook his head, then reached out for the glass. "Sorry, miss."

"Hold it, Jarl." A shadow fell over them, not that tall but rather wide, and Kade looked up to see Zavits, the _Northern Star_'s greeting party. "I think the lady's entitled to a welcome drink for her first time on Styx. On my tab, if the house doesn't fancy being friendly."

It didn't take a genius to note the tightening of expressions that passed between the two, before the Bolian pushed the pint glass closer to Kade. "First time on Styx? I guess that's worth celebrating," he said, though each word sounded like it had been dragged from him.

"Indeed it is. Thank you, Jarl." Zavits slicked back his hair, which did nothing much more than further display his receding hairline, before pulling up a stool next to Kade.

"Sorry about that," he continued as the Bolian skittered off, and he flashed her a broad, toothy smile that made her feel rather greasy. "I'd have hoped that the welcome wagon here would have been nicer."

"I've had worse." Kade thought of his own attitude at the airlock earlier. "But thank you for the drink," she continued, lifting it in a brief toast. "Nothing for yourself?"

It made her spine shiver to associate with him so cheerfully, but this was a man clearly connected with Vincent Black. Perhaps he knew something. Even if he didn't have all the information she needed, being in his good books could only help her cover and prove useful later. Despite the fact that he was an oily rat of a man.

"I don't have long, I'm afraid. I thought I'd come over to properly greet you, and to apologise for my rudeness earlier." Zavits gave a deep, seemingly regretful nod that managed to have his eyes lingering on her chest far longer than necessary, especially considering she was wearing a jumpsuit zipped up to her neck. "I was on a tight schedule, and Captain Theron and I have not always seen eye to eye."

"No?" Kade assumed the most neutral expression she could, mingled with some innocent curiosity, and hid her suspicion behind a sip of the beer. It was tart, sweet, and overall, absolutely disgusting. She managed to not make a face.

"Smuggling is, as I'm sure you know, my dear, a complicated affair. Theron has her way of doing things, I have mine, we don't always agree." Zavits gave a deep, rather melodramatic sigh.

"And what does Mister Black think?"

"Mister Black does whatever will be the most effective at the time. But he has rather more faith in Theron than I do. She's impetuous, and it's going to get her and her wares caught some time. Just like it got two of her crew caught on Vega."

Kade allowed herself to stiffen, using genuine paranoia to affect a false air of suspicion and fear. "Yeah… good for me and my job, but I don't want to end up the same way as my predecessor. What mess _will_I end up involved in working for Theron? It's got to be something quite big if the mess her last two crew caused was anything to go by."

"I didn't realise their arrest made such a ripple. Of course she couldn't cover it up. I should have expected as much." Zavits looked irritated rather than suspicious. "I wouldn't wish to offend your sensibilities, miss, by dumping you too far in the deep end of this myriad of dangers you're paddling around the edge of."

Kade laughed, and this one was genuine – though she managed to take the sting out. "I'm already in it, if I can be arrested for working for Theron. I'd at least like to know what to look out for."

Of course, she already knew exactly what the threats were, but a step at a time was always wise. If he would confide in her the facts of arms smuggling, then it was only a step further to explain the details – especially if she could suggest to him that such a move might impress her.

She had always scoffed at and been offended by the idea expressed by her fellows in Security that a woman doing investigation work would often have to rely upon her sexuality to get her ahead. It seemed cheap and degrading that the first and most obvious weapon in a woman's arsenal would be seduction. But in practice she had resigned herself to acknowledging its usefulness, for where guile could not work, sometimes a smile made miracles happen. She tried to convince herself that it was a victory for women - that the problem lay with men for being so easily swayed by a pretty face - but it still galled her no small amount that she had to lower herself for the best results when a man could subtly interrogate as an equal.

Zavits leaned forwards with a conspiratorial air, and she got a rather unsurprising whiff of bad cologne. "Weapons, my dear," he said. "Phasers going to those who wish to twist a thorn in the side of the oppressive Federation."

Kade fought a scoff. Did this man like space ports? Medical facilities? Oppressive Federation indeed. "You mean the rebels on Vega."

Zavits nodded with a confident smile. "I do. And many others. Mister Black is something of an idealist when it comes to freedom. Believes everyone should have it, and is happy to support those who would fight for it."

"But armaments don't come easily. At least, not weapons that could help one take on local law enforcement, or even Starfleet." This was where she was on dangerous ground. Honest curiosity in him and her circumstances, or suspicious digging. But Kade knew from experience she could only find out by taking the plunge, and she was adept at back-pedalling if she had stumbled upon someone whose paranoia she had underestimated.

Zavits grinned again. But he shook his head and winked conspiratorially. "Then you fight fire with fire. I've made friends for Mister Black amongst various 'fleeties. It's amazing how easy it is to grease the right palms with little luxuries when there's a war. And you get the best produce of all straight from the source."

"The quartermasters?" Kade managed to not hold her breath as she waited for the response, for Zavits had showed thus far not the slightest hint of suspicion and she could, perhaps, just perhaps have already stumbled upon all she needed to know.

"Better than that, my dear. The replicating factories themselves. Before the incriminating serial numbers are even inscribed." Zavits leaned back and looked down at his watch. "But however fun this conversation has been, Miss Tarrick, I'm afraid I'll have to run. Important meeting with Mister Black." He turned his smile to her, prompting a shiver down her back, then he stood.

"I look forward to another conversation in the near future," Kade lied, reaching out her hand to shake his. Unexpectedly, but no less to her displeasure, he instead leaned down to kiss it, before winking at her and sauntering back towards the exit of the bar.

She followed him with her eyes and resisted the urge to wipe her hand on something, or perhaps just go find a shower to leap in. But personal distaste would have to take a back seat to doing her job, and doing her job required watching Zavits - not to mention watching who watched him. The bartender did, eyes narrow and angry, but most others merely glanced at him with cautious disinterest. This was not a man who made others quail at his presence – but he certainly demanded attention, if only for his associations.

Her gaze then drifted upwards, to the higher level of the bar, and it was with a start that she noticed someone watching Zavits with more than just caution – indeed, someone staring quite intently at him as he left, and regarding the doorway once he was gone thoughtfully.

This in itself was not enough for Kade to be surprised. It was likely a man like Zavits had enemies. But she had not expected to see a familiar face in a place like Styx - nor had she expected this particular familiar face. She drained her beer and managed to not grimace as she nodded her thanks to the bartender then, as discreetly as possible, headed towards the upper level.

He was a Cardassian, tall and broad and wearing a jacket that looked at least padded, if not armoured. She couldn't see any weapons - but she could see several blind spots where they could be safely concealed. There was a streak of grey in his slicked-back hair, though he still appeared strong and vital, and he sat at a table with his back to the wall and his gaze still away from her, still turned towards the exit below him.

She padded over and took a deep breath once she was standing by the table, not sure how to tackle this. She decided to go for the basics.

"Your name's Lann, isn't it?"

A hand shot out to grab her by the front of the jumpsuit, and with unexpected speed the Cardassian was on his feet and slamming her onto her back on the table. The noise around her flared up and her vision flashed as her head hit the metal surface, but within seconds both subsided, one to a dull hum of fear, the other to a dull ache. It was obvious that nobody else around in the bar wished to interrupt the scene before them.

"How did you know my name, Trill?" His voice was a low, dangerous growl that nobody else but her would have been able to hear.

It was at that point that she realised she had made a rather gross faux pas, and that there weren't many ways for her to emerge from this with her head still attached to her body that weren't incredibly risky. So she took a deep breath, as best she could with the wind knocked out of her, and looked the Cardassian in the eye, as if it would help him see beyond her flesh.

"That was rude of me," she said quietly. "I should have introduced myself first, but we've met before. My name is Kade."

The Cardassian's dark eyes widened very slightly, and he now looked a little more paranoid of the people around them rather than her. "Kade." His voice was still a low growl, one which only she could hear, and his eyes flickered to the crowd. "Hit me," he said curtly.

"What?"

"Fight back. Or this conversation will have to be over." It sounded like a statement of fact rather than a threat, and though Kade was incredibly confused, she allowed her hand to curled around the neck of the bottle of kanar.

The Cardassian reeled back with a genuine shout of pain as it was smashed down on his skull, immediately letting her go and clutching at his head. Fighting for breath and her heart nearly pounding out of her chest, Kade struggled upright, keeping light on her feet, not sure if she had been goaded into a fight or a charade.

But within seconds the Cardassian lowered his hand, seeming unharmed by the bottle beyond an immediate reaction of pain. He looked her in the eye, then gave a loud, genuine laugh. "A good hit, Trill. You can buy me a drink for that."

And, just as easy as that, all eyes which had been on them, fearful and attentive, dropped and moved back to their drinking and their conversation, for today was not a day a mad Cardassian would gut someone in a horrifying, but ultimately entertaining fashion.

"Charmed, I'm sure," Kade muttered, sitting down as he pulled up his own seat again. "So... what do I call you?" she asked, an awful lot more cautiously as she leaned forwards.

The Cardassian she had once known to be called 'Lann' gave a tight smile. "They call me the Ghost. Any other name I might have is best not spoken here."

"It is irrelevant?" Kade asked, picking her words carefully.

"A name is never irrelevant. But it should not be handed out openly, unquestioningly. And your name?"

"You can call me Tarrick."

"Tarrick." Lann rolled the name over in his mouth for a moment, before he returned the nod. "Very good. So tell me... how is Bruen? It has been some time since last we met."

"Bruen is a much changed individual, but everything essential to him remains." Kade kept her attention on those around her. It seemed as if those who had stared at Lann had been doing so out of fear and a morbid fascination, a hope for some amusement from a fight and the sheer gratitude that it was not them who had incurred his wrath. Although he had always demanded attention when Bruen had met him some twenty years ago, that had been through respect, once, not the fear that she could almost feel washing off all onlookers.

But that fear also prompted them not to look too closely at the two of them as they conversed, and more importantly, not to listen. However Lann had changed, it appeared to be working to their advantage at that moment.

"I would imagine, but that is good to hear." Lann frowned a little. "I would not have expected his successor to find herself working in a place such as this."

"I work happily in a place such as this so long as I am working to end it. I would not have expected someone who was once a Gul to happily work here, either."

"Perhaps we find ourselves working towards a similar purpose. So what employment have you found on Styx, Tarrick?"

"I'm an engineer on the _Northern Star_. And yourself?"

"I find people. People for whom there's someone willing to pay an awfully large sum of money. Like your friend Zavits down there."

The pieces were coming together in Kade's head, mingled with relief. "Just Zavits? Not Vincent Black?"

Lann gave a humourless smile. "I'd be dead before I got close enough. No, Black finds me very useful indeed, and will continue to do so until I am close enough that he can be of use to _me_. Though from your question, I will wager that he is your target."

Kade looked about and judged it safe to talk. "He's been shipping Starfleet-issue weapons to Vega Prime to supply a terrorist organisation. According to Zavits, he's getting them straight from a replicator factory, but I don't know which one. I need more information before I can justify reinforcements for an arrest."

Lann raised an eyebrow. "Fleet?" he mouthed, and she nodded. "Zavits knows a lot about Black's operations. Probably more than he was letting on." He glanced about the bar. "But this is a conversation for some other place, I think. You say you work on the _Northern Star_?"

"Yes. It's Talia Theron's -"

"I know it. She's worth quite a bit as well. I have some business to attend to. I imagine you have some work to do on the ship, now you've enjoyed your welcome, ah... 'drink' here at the Farlight. We should talk later." The emphasis in his voice was unmistakable.

"Yeah... there's a shuttle I need to be getting space-worthy," she said as she stood. "So I should be going. I'll see you later, Ghost."

"Goodbye, Tarrick," Lann said to her retreating back. She didn't look at him as she left, but when she stepped through the doorway into the station's promenade, she could feel his eyes boring into her back - evaluating, and not necessarily benign.

* * *

"This here's a nice hole you've got yourself," Smoke said as he chewed on what was theoretically steak but had the consistency of dried beef jerky. "You sure know how to treat your crew, Skipper, taking me to a place like this."

Theron gave him an impish smirk as she glanced around one of the few eateries of Styx Base. It produced replicated fare whose low quality was rather obvious, but it was often far preferable to whatever half-reconstituted mess a broken down freighter's replicator was likely to produce. Still, to Smoke's starship-adapted stomach, it was almost offensive for his captain to have brought him here for lunch.

Almost. The company helped, for Kade was nowhere in sight and hadn't even been mentioned by Theron, and he was in prime location for extracting information on Black and his operations. He could think of worse investigations. The fact that he knew Kade was checking out one of Styx Base's most squalid drinking holes only amused him further.

"Live off dried rations for a month until you find someone capable of fixing your replicator, and you'll appreciate even this muck," Theron said, dipping a spoon into her soup. It glooped and bubbled in a way Smoke was sure nothing edible was supposed to.

"Or I'll be too dead to care?" He prodded the steak. "I could go and line my boots with this. Thicker 'n a Klingon's skull, for sure."

"Fleet life's just left you soft. You want to work on the _Northern Star_, I'm going to have to toughen you up."

"Hey, maybe 'you are what you eat' does have a ring of truth about it. Maybe I'll go turning all leathery and unbreakable."

She laughed, and he found himself grinning unwittingly. "I'll set you a strict diet of this sort of stuff."

"Oh, that'll go down so well. Probably kill me off eventually." Smoke shook his head, swallowing the lumpy meat. "Don't suppose we'll be getting off this here rock soon enough and back in the black? And then you can't go dragging me off to places like here?"

"A few days. Then just a simple run to Deneb."

"What wonderful illicit goods'll we be hauling there?"

Another short laugh from Theron, though this one was more genuine. "Nothing, but there's a job going to haul some manure to Alpha Centauri, nice and legal and everything." She took a mouthful of her stew, and seemed none the worse for it. "Not everything we do on the _Northern Star _is illegal. Otherwise we'd have been caught by now."

"You mean to say Mister Black has his mucky little fingers in some legal pies? That's hard to believe."

"I have the contacts for elsewhere. Not everything boils down to Vincent Black and Styx Base."

"I find that kinda surprising, way everyone goes on around here 'bout him. And from what folks were saying on Vega. Always sounded like he was the biggest fish around." Smoke raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, he is. But man cannot live by smuggling alone." Theron stirred her stew, evidently used to the poor quality food. "Or woman. Or freighter. I know some folks who need something hauling from A to B that I've worked for before, and who called me." She gave a brief, wry chuckle. "Ha. 'Folks'. Listen to me, you've got me talking like you now."

"The accent is all kinds of types of contagious, I've been told." Smoke smirked.

"But Mister Black did also ask me to take this job. Not specifically… he pulled me and the _Northern Star _off gun runs, and asked me to keep my head down. Do some legitimate work for a bit until the heat's off."

"Black does gun runs other than Vega?" Smoke looked up, then detracted from what could have been a suspicious bout of interest by returning to gnawing on his so-called steak.

"Apparently. I've only been doing Vega. I know the people there, the dock masters, I'd been doing legitimate runs there for years. So I was a good choice." Theron shrugged, looking thoughtful. "I know there are operations on Betazed, Alpha Centauri, and Wolf 424. Anywhere people are getting pissed at the Federation and want to strike back."

Smoke made a face, again hiding this behind chewing. "You'd never be thinking there was a war on, huh?"

"Says wash-out here." Theron nudged him with her foot, and the even fleeting contact managed to brush away the wave of irritation. "The war's the problem. The Federation won't have a galaxy left even if they win the rate they're going. They're just alienating folks – see, there I go again – and sending in goon squads to keep everyone happy."

He dropped his gaze. "You think arming up and taking on the troops is a good way of solving the problem?"

Theron sighed. "I don't know. I just do the runs. And I do the runs because there's money in it, and that means there's demand for what I supply."

"Guess Black goes 'n fills the hole for what's needed. Black market an' all… ah, that was unintentional." Smoke grinned sheepishly.

"Good, because Mister Black hates that joke." Theron chuckled. "You hear all about how he cuts off people's hands for that stuff…"

"He's _that _kind of crime lord?"

"I don't know. Just rumours. Probably just theatrical stories made to scare everyone. Anything I've heard was from someone who heard from someone who heard, so forth. Certainly nothing concrete." Theron took another mouthful of the gloopy stew, though this time she _did _make a face. "I know he values the theatrics, knows how a reputation is important. He probably starts the stories himself so nobody screws with him."

"That may be, but them stories gotta be coming from somewhere. I'd take it as a kindness if you wouldn't even think of bringing me to meet such a charming fella."

"So long as my ship makes it from A to B, he doesn't care who you are. You're just a mindless pilot, a glorified computer control system." Theron hid this latest smirk behind another spoonful of the mysterious stew.

"And that's all I am?" Smoke looked hurt. "You're just going out there and using me to fill an empty seat. That's all it is, ain't it?"

"Of course not. You're a lot smarter than my last pilot, that's for sure."

"Well, I ain't sitting pretty in prison, which I think would be making me the winner here." He grinned and winked at her. "And, well… I'm also having lunch with my pretty skipper, which is also something of a win."

"You're just trying to prove your worth to me now."

"Oh, and I haven't already? I'll have to go try harder to impress."

Theron brushed a lock of silver hair behind one ear and gave him a small smile. "That's something I'd like to see."

Smoke raised an eyebrow, giving up on his battle to make his latest mouthful of steak edible and just swallowing it whole. It went down his windpipe with difficulty, and he coughed, breaking eye-contact. "Well, I…" Another cough. "I always do aim to please."

"Whether or not you'll hit the spot is up for debate."

"We could sit here 'n debate all day, but only way I figure it we're gonna prove my skill entirely is by a… proper testing." His smirked as he fought for composure.

Theron chuckled, then glanced down at her watch. "I'm going to have to get on to the comm and check in with my friends on Deneb, set the schedule. So we'll have to call a rain check on that… testing."

"I can wait." Smoke continued to grin. At the very least, he could use the time to check in with Kade, see what she'd found out, and inform her of the additional shipping locations… not to mention potential hot beds of insurgency.

"I'm sure it won't be too long." Theron stood, stretching a little. Smoke caught a small glimpse of flesh at her midriff as her shirt lifted with her arms, and he smirked upwards at her. "See you later, cowboy."

"You can count on it," Smoke declared through a mouthful of steak, and leaned back to cheerfully enjoy the view as she walked out of the eatery.

All in all, it was promising to be a pretty good assignment here on Styx Base.


	6. Part 5: Styx Base

**Part 5: Styx Base**

"You trying to get us all killed, or did you wake up and decide to rid us of yourself and the slug?" Smoke stuck his head around the corner to peer at Kade, who was down the far end of the corridor and taking a tool to the airlock hatch.

"The outer door's locked. I fixed that this morning." Kade didn't look up, her eyes hidden behind a pair of darkened goggles. "So even if I crack a hole in this metal - which I won't, it's tough and I know what I'm doing - it won't open us to a vacuum."

"All right. So you ain't completely crazy. Just what in the hell _are _you doing, then?" Smoke padded towards her at last, brushing a dangling cable from his way. The _Northern Star_had a lot of such loose wires and flickering lights, and it bemused Smoke that his partner was working on random shuttles and now a door that went nowhere instead of making the freighter overall more inhabitable.

"The shuttle in the cargo bay? Is taking up space." Kade did stop what she was doing this time, turning to face him and lifting her goggles. There was a ring of white around her eyes where they had been protected from the grime from her work. She looked, right then, not in the slightest like the stuck-up security officer he knew. She was indeed Tarrick, the _Northern Star's_engineer.

"It's not supposed to be in the cargo bay," she continued. "I asked Captain Theron, and she said she could probably do with it being up and working again. Not to mention the fact that we might find it handy."

Smoke narrowed his eyes "I'm still all kinds of confused as to how that shuttle relates to this here airlock."

"Isn't that your natural state?" She smirked at him, an impish smirk he was entirely unused to from her. It only irritated him more. It was one thing for her to deride him - it was another entirely for her to _enjoy_it. That was supposed to be his role. "I'm fixing up this airlock like I've fixed up the shuttle. Then I'll open up the cargo hatchway, fly the shuttle out, and dock it here. So it's available for quick access without having to tie down all cargo and make sure nobody's in the bay if you want to attempt to launch it."

"That... makes sense," Smoke conceded grudgingly. "The Cap said it was okay?"

"More like I told her I was going to do it and she didn't object. I've got it pencilled in as a getaway craft, too." Kade lowered her goggles again and set to work with a wrench on some of the bolts, which looked as if they were tightening with worrying ease.

"You really think this is going to blow to hell and we're going to have to bolt?" Smoke rolled his eyes. "You're a wonderful world of optimism, Kade."

"I have no reason to be optimistic. Every other undercover op I've run has been conducted with more time, more preparation, more knowledge. We've flown half-baked into a hornet's nest, so I'm preparing for the worst."

"It ain't all that bad! People leave each other alone on this station, this Mister Black ain't showing no interest in us. And I got us some information. Turns out Black and his fellas are running guns not just to Vega. They've also got ops on Betazed, Wolf 424, and Alpha C." He smirked a victorious smirk.

"That's good." Kade sounded genuine in her praise, but also distracted. "I know he's got contacts in the replicator factories. That's how he's getting his hands on the weapons - he's getting numbers shaved off batches because he's paying the supervisors to look the other way. All of these phasers, right from the source. No wonder we couldn't find where they were coming from, we assumed it was corrupt quartermasters."

"From the factories?" Smoke looked horrified. "You're kidding me! Those things are locked down tighter 'n a nun's thong!"

"I know." She did look back at him this time. "But that's what Zavits said. He seems to know what he's talking about. He's a proper bigwig. But we need something more concrete before we can call for reinforcements. Gun running to other planets, great - but that'll count for nothing if we don't get the source. Factories, great - but which ones, and which people? We need names. So far we've just got a vague outline. Callahan will never give us reinforcements on something this flimsy."

"I dunno, it ain't like we couldn't find something to charge each and every one of the scummy bastards here with." He shook his head, letting out a low whistle. "Replicator factories. I'll be damned."

"We're not on our own, at least." Kade lifted the goggles back up. "I ran into someone I think could help us. Someone who was trustworthy last I met him. He knows I'm 'fleet, but I think he's got his own reason to keep his head down here."

"I thought we couldn't go trusting anyone 'round here?"

"This is different." She stood, dusting her hands off. "He's a Cardassian, former Gul of the Union military. His name's Lann, but he's keeping that a secret around here. And he's currently working as a bounty hunter, ostensibly for Mister Black, but it looks like he's trying to get his hands on Black's lieutenants. Apparently that pays well." Kade made a disapproving face.

"We got ourselves a bounty hunter who's sitting pretty, on Black's payroll, even if he's playing pretend, and he knows you're Fleet? How is this even resembling a good thing?" Smoke stared, somewhat incredulous.

"I know him. Well. Bruen knew him." Kade shrugged. "From after the Dominion War. Bruen was involved in a lot of the Federation's efforts to help rebuild Cardassia. Lann was one of those high enough ranked to make a difference but low enough that he didn't just spend his time pushing paper, and he was one of the few really enthusiastic about Federation help. He knew that if the Cardassians fought against it they'd end up getting hand-outs, but if they co-operated they could get assistance on their own terms, keep their own pride. He knows what's good for people, and he's not afraid to do the right thing even if he finds it distasteful."

"Ain't that cute." Smoke didn't look convinced. "Still ain't seeing how this is good for us."

"He said he'd talk to me again soon," Kade said, brushing a lock of dark hair behind an ear. "And hopefully he'll be able to give us some more information on the operations. It looks like he's been here a while. So we shouldn't be flailing in the dark, with his help. We're on the same side."

Smoke snorted quietly. "All right. Fine. I'll keep working on Theron, then. She seems to know a lot about Black's ops, and she don't seem afraid to talk 'bout it. I just don't want to go being all suspiciously curious and the like."

"Good call. You should also try to delay her setting a departure date. I think we need as much time here as we can get."

"Hell, you could just go an' sabotage the engines or something. But I'll do what I can. Maybe get her to introduce me to some of her buds, see if they know anything." Smoke nodded to himself. "She should be happy to help, I figure."

Kade looked at him with a touch of concern. "She's still a smuggler who works for Vincent Black. Don't forget that."

"'Course I ain't gonna forget a thing like that," he said, straightening defensively. "I ain't stupid, you know."

Kade raised her hands quickly. "I'm not trying to score points against you here, Jackson. It's just that you two have been getting a bit friendly. Don't get too close to someone while you're undercover. It blurs the lines of fiction and reality, and that ends badly." Her voice dropped a little, sounding genuine. "I'm just warning you. Not lecturing you."

"Yeah, well, it can be kinda hard to tell the difference when you get going." Smoke rolled his eyes. "I'm fine. I'll be seeing Talia later for another drink and I'll find out what we're doing next. An' see about meeting some folk from other freighters. You just have fun with your Cardie, then."

"I'll get in touch with him." Kade sagged in defeat in the face of his pride. "See if he's got more on Zavits. Just... take it easy, Smoke." She added his call-sign in reluctant deference, hoping it would break through.

The pilot just gave en exaggerated shrug as he turned to head back the way he'd come, back towards the docking. "Don't I always? You think that's the problem."

Kade shook her head, then just lowered her goggles again and got back to work. The airlock doors had been liabilities when she'd got to them, probably easily breached with a good kick or a wrong strain. It had taken her the better part of this, their second morning at Styx Base, to put the outer door in a condition she was happy with. This inner holding, more battered by her inept predecessor not knowing what he was doing, worried her distinctly more.

She wouldn't know what she was doing so much if it came to fixing the opening mechanism, or if the _Northern Star's_ warp core had a significant problem. She'd taken a few extra courses in the Academy to augment her personal knowledge, but all on emergency repairs and smallcraft maintenance. So she knew how to make a metal panel properly solid in a vacuum, she knew how to fix up an impulse engine and how to even out inertial dampeners. Maintenance work was fairly easy. If the _Northern Star_needed something serious, though, she didn't have half the expertise she'd lied through her teeth to Theron about possessing.

But the shuttle was in working condition, and if she and Smoke were going to need to make a fast getaway, she had to position it so it could be launched quickly. It would be a long and finicky operation to get the shuttle out of the cargo bay and docked with this side-airlock - she didn't want to even _think_ about how messy an event it would be to try and launch the shuttle from the cargo bay if they needed to be swift. And she wasn't convinced Smoke wasn't going to bring a need for a swift getaway down on their heads. He seemed to be getting close to Theron, too close for her comfort. The lunches together were one thing, and good for extracting information. But had Kade been a genuine crewmember of the _Northern Star_, then she'd have probably been paranoid of the connection the other two had which would leave her on the outside.

She wasn't sure _what_sort of connection. She did know it was getting information, and so she wouldn't put her foot down with it yet. But she also knew she wasn't convinced it was entirely a show, which was why she had to add the 'yet' to her decision.

So lost was she in her welding and her thinking that she hardly heard the footsteps coming down the corridor behind her - not enough to realise there were two sets, and heavier than either of the people she'd expect to be on the ship. She pushed her goggles up again, not turning around. "Don't worry, Captain, this airlock should be perfectly sealed on both hatches now, I -"

"Oh, please. You're not an engineer, spare me the bullshit, goldshirt."

It wasn't Theron's voice, and as Kade whipped around, brandishing a small wrench as if it would protect her, her heart leapt into her throat enough to almost choke. For there, standing triumphantly in the middle of the corridor, was Zavits, arms folded across his chest. His confidence had to come from the fact that he wasn't alone, for there, standing over his shoulder and pointing a rifle directly at her, stood the hulking form of Lann.

"You..." Words died in Kade's throat as she stood, the rifle following her all the way. "What are you talking -"

"Oh, please. The Ghost here told me everything. About how he met you back when he was a soldier for the Union and you... you wore a Starfleet uniform. I should have guessed you were security when you started asking about the phasers." Zavits shook his head, a slow smirk beginning to play on his lips. "But I have you now, and that's the important thing. Bagging a spy's going to be one hell of a feather in my hat from Mister Black, and no mistake."

Kade's eyes settled on Lann's. They were dark, and utterly pitiless. "You set me up, you spoon-headed bastard..."

"Now, now, Miss Tarrick... if that's your real name. No racial slurs here." Zavits waggled a meaty finger at her. "The Ghost knows what side his bread's buttered on. And I'm the one who can pay. I must thank you again, Ghost, for coming to me with this information."

"I believed you were the one who would benefit from it the most." Lann's gaze didn't leave hers, and he hardly moved as he spoke. "Like I said, I should be attaching myself to a rising star in Mister Black's operations. So much the better if I can give that star a leg up."

"Are you going to, ah... what's the phrase... come quietly? Or am I going to have to ask my colleague here to stun you?" Zavits tilted his head to one side.

Kade was damned if she was going to give up without a fight, but she lifted her hands slowly, grinding her teeth together. Zavits stepped forward, bringing up a pair of wristcuffs, his gait a swagger of confident success. It also, as triumph clearly overtook common sense, brought him right in between her and Lann's rifle.

The wrench was back in her hand within seconds and swung at Zavits' solar plexus. He reeled back but too little, too late, and the heavy metal tool connected solidly with his gut. There was a crack from a lower rib, and he bent over with a huge grunt.

This, unfortunately, brought her back in Lann's line of fire, and even as she reached out to grab Zavits and bring him back up as a human shield, he fired. He'd reacted quicker than she could have anticipated, and the blast hit her in the chest.

Every nerve in her body tingled as she keeled over to hit the _Northern Star's_deck. She was still conscious, just, the blast set to a power level barely shy of knocking her out, but her vision swam in front of her eyes, and her stomach did somersaults. She couldn't move for several long seconds, could only stare at the ceiling and gasp for air through the pain.

Zavits' face appeared above her, a snarl of irritation tugging at his lip. "You bitch... couldn't you just accept that you were screwed?" Beyond him she was dimly aware of Lann's shadow moving.

Although the ringing in her ears made it hard to hear, even as she could writhe slowly, desperately willing her muscles to co-operate, she still heard the bleep of a control being hit and the whir of the inner airlock door she'd been working on opening.

Zavits looked up, seeming confused - though her vision was beginning to go grey at the edges and such details were hard to identify. "Spacing her? That's a little bit vicious, Ghost. We do want to ask her some questions, after -"

Exactly what happened was hard to see with every nerve alight, and especially with her vision swimming like it was in the Olympics. But she did see Zavits' body jerk out of her line of sight, heard a thump from somewhere within the airlock, and then another bleep and the sound of the airlock door closing again.

"What the... Ghost? What the hell are you doing?" Zavits' voice again, now muffled, and even through the pain and confusion Kade managed to roll over to see what was going on. Indeed, Zavits was now behind the closed airlock door, only another stretch of metal between him and the cold vacuum of space. Lann was leaning casual next to the controls, rifle set on the floor, arms folded across his chest.

"Turning the tables, Zavits. You think, even if I wanted to hand over a prize like a Starfleet officer to your flavour of scum, I'd go straight to _you_? You think I wouldn't have taken her straight to Mister Black?" Lann rolled his eyes, before turning back to Kade and extending a hand towards her.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but this charade was necessary. You _did_want Black's right-hand man delivered to you on a silver platter, didn't you?"

It took Kade two tries to grab the one of Lann's hands that was actually real, and he hauled her to her feet. She managed to get her knees to lock and lean against the wall, trying to not be sick.

"What," Kade gasped, her tongue feeling oversized for her mouth, "the hell is going on...?"

Lann nodded over at Zavits, who was staring through the transparisteel of the airlock with absolute disbelief and horror. "Getting my hands on Zavits is a difficult prospect. He's a paranoid man, and wherever he goes, someone knows where he is. If he has a meeting with a freighter captain, it's logged in. If he has a deal he wants to make, he mentions who he's with. Sometimes just on his computer records, sometimes to Mister Black, sometimes to just a flunkey. A trap would be difficult to orchestrate without the operation being blown if he was missing for too long - someone would know where he had been, and all hell would land on my head."

Lann tapped on the glass, smirking a dark, malevolent smirk. "So I decided on a plan which made the most of his paranoia, and offset it with his greed. A prize like you, a Starfleet officer undercover on Styx, would fetch a valuable, valuable reward from Black. So valuable that Zavits here wouldn't trust anyone else with the knowledge of your existence, or where he was going even with a false pretence, in case someone attempted to steal you before he could claim you. You were so appealing to his greed that his paranoia turned towards all of his allies, instead of being worried about his foes."

"This was a plan? You told him the truth to lure him here so you could catch him where nobody would know to look?" Kade rubbed her throat. Her vision was coming back to normal, slowly, and there was only one Lann and one Zavits now, albeit rather blurred. "Wasn't that... stupidly risky? Won't anyone look for you?"

"I'm just a ghost." Lann gave an shadow of a smile. "I am also dumb muscle who happened to have recognised you as a Starfleet officer I met back when I was nothing more than a humble foot soldier for the Union."

Kade snorted. "You were nothing like a humble foot soldier."

"You'd be amazed how good a mask I can wear." Lann reached down to his belt, which had many metal pouches attached to it, and pulled out a tall, thin, silver flask. "Have some of this. It should soothe the nerves."

Kade managed to grab it first time, and took a hefty swig without thinking. It was a Cardassian liquor she'd tasted before but didn't have the presence of mind to recall the name of. With the lizard origins of the Cardassian people they appreciated warmth above all other creature comforts, and warmth was what this drink provided. It pooled in her stomach before ebbing slowly out, softening the jangling of her nerves as the wave of heat washed over her body.

Her hand was considerably more steady when she passed the flask back to Lann, nodding her thanks. "You could have shot _Zavits_after I hit him, you know."

The Cardassian raised an eyebrow, looking darkly amused. "That wasn't for the charade." He pointed at the brown patch of skin near his hairline - a bruise on his alien skin. "It was for the bottle."

"While this is all very nice," came Zavits' muffled voice through the airlock, "when are you going to _let me out_?" He bashed on the hatch, though his hammering only made a very dull thud.

Lann turned to the portly crime lieutenant, and back again was that dark look in his eyes. The glint in his gaze had been the same when she'd glared at him seconds before, when he'd been pretending to be her enemy. She couldn't tell the difference between the charade of fury and the real emotion.

"You," Lann said to Zavits, "should not be talking unless spoken to. We are going to ask you whatever questions we want, and if we don't like the answers you give us - which includes silence - then I am standing by the controls to the airlock outer door."

Kade remained silent as Zavits mulled this over, desperately hoping Lann was bluffing, not particularly sure what she'd do if he wasn't. If this was still some deception then it was exceptionally elaborate. His reasoning for luring Zavits here in the way that he had made sense, and if Bruen's recollection of the former Cardassian commander could be trusted, then... well, so could Lann be trusted.

"Who are you?" Zavits asked, his voice almost sulky.

"That's a question, not an answer. You don't seem to be grasping how this works." Kade peeled herself off the wall and took a wobbly step towards the airlock. "You said that Black got his military issue weaponry from the replicator factory. Which one? Where?"

As Zavits remained silent, Lann shook his head. "You're starting with the big questions first. Let's make things a little bit easier; the poor man is obviously very confused and hurt." The Cardassian walked up beside Kade, peering through the doorway. "What is your name? Your real name?"

"Zavits _is _my name, you piece of shit. Peter Zavits. It's on any warrants for my arrest, if you two clowns have actually done your homework before coming to Styx and coming after me," he scoffed.

"You're assuming we care that much about a small fry like you," Kade said. "Who do you work for?"

"Vincent Black. And A is for apple. Can I go now?" But even through his confidence Kade could see the fiddling with the sleeves of his shirt, the tapping of his foot which gave away the bubbling fear.

She arched an eyebrow. "And your job?"

"Whatever he asks me to do." Zavits' voice was picking up speed. "Find someone to ship goods from A to B. Gather some guys and discipline those who fail in such tasks. Find the goods in the first place. I'm best at shipment managing; that's what he asks me to do most of the time. That was why he had me meet the _Northern Star_upon docking." He turned to face them both, hands flat on the hatchway. "You're not going to space me," he said, though there was a deeply pleading note in what was otherwise a flat statement. "You're Starfleet. That would be murder."

"I won't." Kade jerked her head towards Lann. "He might. And he's a big guy, with a gun. I don't know if I could stop him."

"But you're being co-operative. I like that. It stops an itchy trigger finger. Or button finger." Lann waggled his hand over the airlock control panel.

Zavits sagged visibly. "What... what do you want to know?"

Kade leaned forwards, gaze level with his through the transparisteel. "You said Black gets his shipments of military weapons from replicator factories. Is this true?" Zavits nodded his head miserably. "Which ones?"

There was a sigh, but the frantic flickering of his eyes suggested that his mind was indeed racing - through the information or how to wriggle out, it was impossible to tell. "The Starfleet facility at Sirius."

She narrowed her eyes. "That's all? For the amount of weaponry being shipped around?"

"Sirius is one of the most active facilities out there. Marines die by the millions and most of their kit is retrieved, even if bodies aren't. Not all of the new weaponry is as necessary as one would think," Zavits said, looking her straight in the eye.

Lann slammed his hand against the wall next to the panel, and Zavits jumped, all colour washing out of his face. "There's more," Kade said.

"Fine... fine!" The first had been a whisper, the second, a terrified shout. "I don't know for sure... this wouldn't be my operation. But rumour has it that Angosia was devastated, but not assimilated. And that the factory there was abandoned, but not destroyed or damaged. That... Black's got it." Zavits' hands were by now visibly shaking. "That's just what I heard. I don't know how he's supposed to have done it, how the place isn't overrun by Borg. I don't know how he's running it. He doesn't tell me those things - I do shipments from A to B. But there have been a lot of his personal ships, the ones he actually owns rather than just hires, coming in to dock with weapons cargo and no point of origin. And they _didn't_come from Sirius."

"All right, all right." Kade's voice was as soothing as she could find it in her heart to sound. "I believe you. Let's talk about Sirius, then." She stepped away from the hatchway, maintaining eye contact and slowly, colour began to return to the criminal's face.

"W-what about it?"

"Who are the contacts there? Who's skimming numbers off a few batches? Who's getting paid?" Kade kept her voice low and level, desperate to not raise it. She would probably have to be downright angelic cop to balance out with Lann, whose gaze fixed on Zavits had become nothing short of murderous.

"I, ah..." Zavits thought furiously. "Waller. Chief Petty Officer Waller, Senior Floor Supervisor, Alpha Block. And Lieutenant Ocheeva, Administration Team Leader for the entire facility. They may have brought others in. I don't know. I don't care, I don't handle the pay-off. I know Ocheeva changes the records to make it look legit, and Waller gets the physical cases out. That's all I know about what's going on at Sirius, I _swear_." A sweaty palm ran down the transparisteel, leaving a moist path in its wake as Zavits clawed pleadingly at the airlock hatchway.

"What about the weapons in general? Where are they being shipped to?" Lann chipped in at this point, Zavits visibly quaking.

"Uh, ah, uh..." Zavits looked on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. "Alpha Centauri. Andoria. Vega Prime. Wolf 424. Betazed. Corida. That's it for regular. Anywhere that pays. Anywhere that... orders it. I don't remember the details. I really don't, I never would, I'd have to check it written down..." More clawing at the hatch.

"You'll do no such thing," Kade said. "What are the names and registries of ships carrying weapons or that have been hired to carry weapons? Any you can remember?"

Colour by now had almost completely gone from Zavits' face. "What I can remember... the _Last Chance_ and the _Swift_ are going to Betazed. The _Lake Armstrong_ is going to Alpha Centauri. And the _Metal Madness_is going to Corida. That's all I can remember. Really. Can I get out now?"

Lann looked Kade in the eye. "If there are any other questions you have for him, I suggest you ask him now. We may not have a chance like this to get him so... co-operative."

She nodded, turning back to Zavits. "What ship does Black travel on?"

"The _Meridian_, registry YN-434," Zavits said mechanically. "When he does travel. She's a modified Centauran freighter with heavier weaponry and faster engines, at the expense of some cargo space. He usually travels with at least half a dozen bodyguards, and the _Meridian_needs a crew of four."

"And his forces here on Styx?"

Zavits closed his eyes, though his lips moved silently while he seemed to run through calculations. "Directly hired on a regular basis on Styx? Maybe forty enforcers, half a dozen handymen like me. But on Styx at any given time? Likely to be around about a hundred extra people who could be hired muscle, maybe another hundred who would just be dead weight in a fight. Mister Black doesn't play it to fight, he just counts on being overlooked in the war."

Lann looked at Kade. "Anything else?"

The Trill paused, thinking. There were so many more things she'd want to ask, but all were best kept for an interview room or a courthouse, all as evidence for a further investigation or a conviction of Black, and the end of his operations. But she was confident they had everything they'd need to call in the cavalry, and bring a cleaning team to Styx Base. "That's all," she confirmed.

Lann nodded and, to Kade's infinite relief, hit the button to open the inner airlock door. Zavits sagged to his knees as the hatchway began to open, and crawled forwards into the corridor the moment he had the space to slip through.

"Thank you," he panted desperately. "Thank -"

Lann grabbed him by the front of the shirt, hauling him half-upright with one hand. The other reached for his neck, and as Kade watched, slow to react through the remnants of the stun, he grabbed a thin chain which hung around the crime lieutenant's neck, and broke it off with a firm yank.

Then he shoved Zavits back inside the airlock and slapped the door to close the hatchway again.

Zavits staggered to his feet, eyes wide, expression horrified. "What are you... you said you'd let me out!"

"I said no such thing." Lann's voice was quiet as he examined what he held in his hand. It was a grey chain; dangling from it was a thick, rectangular piece of metal. "I said if I didn't like your answers, I'd space you. If I'd taken this bauble off you in the first place, you'd have known I was going to kill you anyway."

Kade took a slow step forward, feeling as if her legs were moving through treacle. "You're _not _spacing anyone...!"

Lann gave her a bored look, before sighing and reaching out with one large hand to shove her. It wasn't particularly hard or fast, but her body was still not responding the way it should have done, and even the slight pressure was enough to knock her off her feet. "Sorry, Kade. But he knows too much to let go, and it's not like you can keep him prisoner here on the _Star_. I think Theron would notice." He turned back to Zavits, who was by now trying to prise the airlock hatch open with his hands. It was a futile effort.

"Thank you for your co-operation," Lann told the criminal without a hint of irony. Then he hit the button to open the outer airlock door.

There was a second as the outer hatch slid open where the air rushed out into the cold vacuum of space and Zavits managed to gain an impossible grip on an edge inside the airlock. Then the door behind him was open and there was nothing he could grab hold of. It happened very quickly. One moment he was standing in the airlock; the next, he was gone.

"We just have to hope nobody notices the body drifting through space; so long as he doesn't float in front of a window in the next few minutes, Xi Cyg's gravity should take care of him," Lann said, hitting the button to close the outer hatch at last. He turned to face Kade, grimacing. "Sorry, again. But you have to understand why I did that."

Kade's eyes were wide as she clambered to her feet. "You just... you murdered him. He was our prisoner, and you _murdered_him."

"If we'd let him go, he would have handed us in and we'd be dead before we could get off this base," he pointed out. "There was nowhere you could stow him; I have no ship to keep him on even if we could transport him. There is nobody on Styx who would accept a bribe to keep one of Vincent Black's lieutenants incarcerated. And there is nowhere to keep him on the _Northern Star_where he would not either be next to some vital system or where Theron might find him."

"Then you should have _thought_ about that before you _brought_him here!" Kade took an uneven step forward. She desperately wanted hit him, but didn't trust either herself to be able to connect or him to not retaliate - or escalate. "You should have known this was a plan which couldn't end with him being alive!"

"I did. You have your information on Black's operations, no? Enough to get more people behind an investigation? Maybe bring a ship in? Is that not enough?"

"Enough, it..." Kade stared at him. "You're a bounty hunter! Don't you get paid for bringing him in?"

"Dead or alive." He lifted the necklace he'd taken. "These are his dog tags from the Marine Corps. They are the absolute best evidence I can provide that I am the one who killed him. That will mean I will be paid."

Kade staggered over to her toolbox, expression thunderous, and jerkily picked up the large welding torch she'd been using that morning. Despite the rifle within Lann's reach, she lifted the torch and pointed it at the burly Cardassian. "Get the hell out of here," she said flatly. "You're nothing more than a bloodthirsty murderer, and I do not need or want your help in anything more of this investigation. You're just lucky that Bruen owed you enough for me to not have you arrested for this murder once we take down Styx Base."

Lann gave a sigh. "Kade... don't take it so damn hard -"

"Get out. I'm _not_kidding. I won't work with people like you." Her eyes narrowed. "I reckon I can fry you before you can shoot me."

The Cardassian rolled his eyes. "As you wish. And I thought the Federation was growing a spine with the war." He leaned down to pick up his rifle - but slowly, unthreateningly, and left without further ado.

It was only when she couldn't hear his footsteps any more that Kade dropped the unignited welding torch and allowed her weak legs to give way. She slid to the floor and curled her arms around her knees, and tried to will the images of Zavits in the few moments before vacuum had claimed him out of her mind.

* * *

"Well, that information's all kinds of interesting." Smoke squinted through the cockpit viewscreen of the _Northern Star's_ tiny shuttle he and Kade were crammed into. Beyond them, hanging in the starscape, was Styx Base and the _Northern Star_herself, and it was with deft control that the pilot brought the shuttle about towards the airlock on the freighter.

They had been there for about two hours, ninety minutes spent together on final touches to ensure the shuttle was space-worthy, and another half an hour just trying to get her out through the _Northern Star's_cargo bay hatchway. But now they were done if they could dock with the repaired airlock and get the shuttle settled into its newest home.

"Does it actually help us much?" the pilot continued, slowing down the shuttle's propulsion. Out here, on a vessel the two of them had poked from top to bottom and were sure was clear of listening devices, with a cold vacuum between them and anyone else in the universe, they were probably safe to talk. "I mean... do we need more?"

"I don't think we're going to get more than we have." Kade sighed, rubbing her eyes in a break from staring at the sensor display. "We know what his ops are on the weapons dealing. We know which ships will be going where for the next big shipments. At the very least, we need to get word out on those so they can be stopped. I think it'll be enough to also justify a raid here on Styx. But that'll be up to Callahan or MacKenzie."

"How'd you go and get yourself all of this? Ship names, contact names? A real goldmine." Smoke gave her a grin - for once a genuine smile of appreciation rather than a smirk to back up a cutting barb of a statement.

"From Lann," Kade responded quickly. It was probably best that she didn't drag Smoke into things he didn't want to know. If anyone traced Black's lieutenant to the _Northern Star_then perhaps he, at least, could get away with ignorance. "He did some digging around for me."

"And you trust this info?" Smoke sighed. "He's saved us an awful lot of that downright annoying legwork. Sounds like he's a useful fella to keep 'round."

"I think it best we don't make contact with him again," she said. "He said he'd risked his cover by giving us what he'd dug up. It could get too hot for us if we're seen together."

"That's all fair. So, where are we gonna be going from here, fearless leader?"

"We need to get word out. Summon reinforcements, hand around the intel."

"Something tells me we won't be able to get a comm line open to have a little chat with New Moscow without somebody noticing," Smoke pointed out. "Maybe we should leave here, wait until the _Northern Star_gets to Deneb, work from there."

"That could take days. No guarantee Black's going to be around that long, and the ships could have already dropped their loads. We need to get something out by the end of the day." Kade made a face. "I also don't think that both of us should leave Styx if we're expecting reinforcements. Someone should keep an eye on the base - make sure nobody goes to ground or the situation doesn't change."

"I'd suggest you or I hire passage on a ship leaving for somewhere nearby, but that's still hours and then getting back might be a mite difficult," Smoke said. "We could take the _Northern Star_? Convince Talia to leave early, send a comms message once we're out of range of Styx noticing?"

"Theron might notice," said Kade, "and send an alert to Black. We can't have her anywhere near. Which is the same problem with any ship we jump onto - we're a good eight hours away from the nearest point of civilisation, and that doesn't count docking and getting to a transmission station capable of interstellar communication. I don't want to have a chance any freighter captain from Styx could detect a transmission to a Starfleet location."

"I think stealing a ship and making the call from the vessel once we're out of range would probably be all kinds of silly. Fun, but probably likely to get ourselves all trussed up by a tractor beam 'fore we got too far." He gave a wry, regretful smile. By now he had brought the shuttle to a stop. It would look to anyone bothering to pay attention that the pilot was sizing up the unfamiliar docking procedure before attempting it.

"Any freighter is going to have docking clamps, and any captain would notice their ship leaving in time to raise the alarm. It's not like we've got a handy ship just lying..." Kade's voice trailed off as her gaze met Smoke's and the two of them shared an expression of complete contempt for their combined stupidity before their eyes raised to look at the small shuttle around them.

"...I don't think Talia would notice this little hopper was gone before I'd be far enough out to send a call to old man Callahan," Smoke said, stroking the dark stubble on his chin.

"I can keep an eye on Black, his ship, and his operations. And hopefully keep Theron distracted enough to stop her from noticing a pile of junk she didn't pay attention to anyway is missing. If she really presses me, I'll just say you took it out for a test spin. It's a bad lie, but hopefully she has no reason to suspect us." Kade nodded, the ideas churning around in her brain. "You can remember the information?"

Smoke looked briefly offended. "It were all of five minutes ago you told me, spots," he saod. "This brain of mine ain't actually made outta cheese, believe it or not."

"Really? I thought it was full of stars and booze." But there was less bite in the exchange. "I'm serious, though. The ship names, which is going where..."

"I can do calculations to figure out if I'm gonna hit that mountainside doing the speed I am and by what margin I need to throttle back while still being able to turn away and stay low enough for sensors to not pick me up on a stealth run. I can remember a handful of ships and planets." Smoke gave her a lopsided, confident grin. "Stars and booze can be complicated sometimes."

"Just checking. All right, let's dock this thing. You grab yourself some supplies, just in case, and I'll go straight to check up on the _Meridian_, make sure she's not going anywhere and isn't about to. If she is, I'll have to... get inventive."

"Four hours out," Smoke confirmed, talking more to himself than her, "and call the cavalry. I'll come hurtling right back when I'm done, 'less the old man's got some other plan. So that'll have me back here... eight, nine hours." By now, the shuttle was again drifting back towards the _Northern Star's_airlock hatch.

"And then," Kade declared with a grim certainty, "I'm having a drink."

* * *

A mere half-hour later Smoke was back in the cockpit of the small shuttle, which he had nicknamed 'the _Dipper'_ for his own convenience of reference. A short trip around the _Northern Star_had seen him claiming a small box of emergency rations, just in case something went horrifically wrong, and his blanket and pillow from the bed, to make the trip more comfortable. With luck, he'd be back by the middle of the night, local time for Styx Base. That didn't deny the chance for a nap on the trip, outgoing or inbound. Or while waiting for the cavalry to pick him up. Whichever.

Kade was gone to check up on Black and the _Meridian_, with a promise to keep an eye out for Theron and fob her off as necessary. He knew - hoped - that the _Dipper _could cope with the short journey outside of any range where Styx would detect him, and beyond where any of its attached ships were likely to be roaming. All in all, it was likely to be safe.

Which was why he almost jumped out of his skin as he heard a familiar voice and the shuttle hatchway open while he was running through the pre-flight sequence. "Going somewhere? I thought you'd already tested this thing."

Smoke whirled around in the control chair, eyes wide as Theron ducked into the shuttle, closing the hatchway shut behind her. "Uh... skipper! Yeah, yeah, just running the new kid through her paces properly... make sure the warp drive's all working. Not like I got much else to do." He could feel the palms of his hands sweating, and was well aware how unconvincing he sounded.

"Test of the warp drive? And you didn't think to mention this to me in case you blew up my property?" There was a hardness to her eyes he hadn't seen before. "Granted, property which was being used as nothing more than a very expensive paperweight until you and Tarrick came along." A pause. "A lot of things seem to have changed since you and Tarrick came along."

He swallowed hard. "Talia..."

"Who are you?" Her voice was flat. "I believe you were a Starfleet pilot. But since then? You'd have to have killed someone, as in actually murdered someone, to be thrown out of the Fleet in a time of war. And then you'd be in prison. Just screwing up wouldn't get you kicked out, just demoted and put somewhere minor. So you're either on the run or a deserter. And with the way Starfleet would treat both of those if they caught up with you - as in, they would _shoot_you these days - you wouldn't casually throw that around. You certainly wouldn't tell a dodgy freighter captain who might choose to hand you over because you could be more trouble than you were worth."

"Um..." Smoke's mind raced - looking at Theron, at the hatchway, he figured he could probably tackle her and knock her out, knowing he'd win in a fight, and confident she certainly couldn't raise an alarm out here before he overpowered her. Not to mention the fact that she didn't have a phaser on her. But then, she had to know all of this. So what...?

Either she had an ace up her sleeve, or she wasn't planning on raising the alarm at all.

He took the plunge.

"My name," Smoke said levelly, "is Lieutenant David Jackson. I'm a member of Starfleet Special Investigations, and I knew there was a vacancy on your freighter, and that the _Northern Star_had been transporting guns, 'cause I was one of the people who arrested your old pilot and engineer."

Theron didn't appear surprised in the slightest. "And Tarrick?"

"My partner. Unfortunately." He made a face. "So... what now? Are you gonna hand me over to Black for a pat on the head?"

She gave a short, humourless laugh. "Are you here to take Vincent Black down?" Smoke nodded mutely. "_Can_you take him down?"

"We think so. We got enough information to call a starship for a raid. Er... that's what I'm going and stealing your shuttle for. To get out of the Styx spaceways and send a message to my superiors with the evidence we've gathered and a request for backup."

"And then, no more Vincent Black." Theron wandered over and sat down in the co-pilot's chair.

"Assuming he don't leave Styx Base before the raid arrives. That's what Kade… um… Tarrick… is doing."

"Good," Theron said. Then she looked at him. "Are you going to leave, or what?"

"What?"

"You can take my shuttle," she said, "but it's still mine and I'm not letting you go off with it on your own. I also have no intention of being imprisoned by Starfleet for my various smuggling acts. So I'm going to help you, and you're going to make sure I get my record wiped clean. Deal?"

Smoke thought furiously. It _seemed_ plausible, and deals like that were within the power of SSI. "Uh. Sure." He began to power the shuttle up, drawing them away from the _Northern Star_and Styx Base. "But... why do you want Vincent Black to go down? Won't you be out of a job?"

"I run guns and smuggle gemstones for two reasons. One is the war. The other is because Black has placed a stranglehold around all legitimate operations such that they have to shut down, place themselves under the Federation merchant marine, or do his bidding." Theron made a face. "He, unlike the merchant marine, at least lets me run my own show and occasionally take the jobs I like."

"Oh."

Silence ruled for long moments as the _Dipper_pulled away from Styx Base, and into the traffic lanes of the freighters incoming and outbound. A small shuttle wasn't unusual around here, liable to be utilised by any individual who wished to do personal business, rather than shipping cargo. So it was with no hassle from the station and no further words spoken between them that they left the immediate area of Styx Base and leaped into Warp.

"So," Smoke said, somewhat calmer once the stars were streaming by in front of them. "I'm a Fed. I'm after all your buds. And you're really all fine and dandy with that?"

"They're not my 'buds'." Theron made a face. "My father was an honest man, even in dishonest times. If I'm to use his name and his ship to do my business, the least I can do is honour his memory by being more than a common smuggler." There was a pause. "And Vincent Black _does_cut off hands. I don't fancy working for someone like that."

"...figures." Smoke leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on a panel, trying to force the tension out of his body. "I... should be able to get the deal. You could have just bust me wide open. And you can probably give more information on Black to help us out. That should get you a clean slate."

"I should hope so." She glanced at him, her expression still mischievously amused. "You're really not good at this undercover thing, are you."

"Not really," Smoke sighed. "Kade's the expert."

"Oh, Tarrick I would never have suspected if you hadn't been around. I'd have just thought her a crap engineer. A decent enough mechanic, but... not an engineer. She treats the '_Star_like a thing. No real engineer would do that."

"At least she don't 'fess up when on the spot and leaves her feelings wide open even pretending to be someone completely else," he grumbled, running a hand through his hair.

"Yes. You and your intentions were pretty easy to read." Another sideways glance. "So… you're not one of my crew, I guess."

"'fraid not. You don't have to pay me?"

"Well… that's good, but it's not what I was thinking. David." Theron gave a small smile. "Yes. It makes sense you're a David. I can see you as a David. But I prefer you _not _as my employee."

"What? I'm a bad pilot?" He affected a look of mock offence.

"No. I just have a few rules against getting involved with someone who works for me." She gave a broad, toothy smile as she reached out and rested a hand on his shoulder. Just the lightest touch was like a small jolt within him, dismissing self-pity for nervousness and a touch of elation.

"Involved, huh?" Smoke raised an eyebrow. "That sounds a little bit intense." His own grin began to play across his lips.

"Oh… It will be." Then she leaned over and kissed him, and for a few long moments, Smoke didn't care whether or not this was the mother of all double-bluffs.

He found, rather unsurprisingly, that he still didn't care when she finally pulled back, wearing the sort of smile he usually got from a rather smug cat who'd been out hunting. He also didn't care about being prey, in this instance.

"So… how far is it to this stop-point?" Theron asked, one eyebrow raised, running a finger along his jaw-line, stroking the stubble on his chin.

"About four hours or so." Smoke feigned a pained expression. "A long and potentially dull journey."

"I don't know…" A slight widening of the smile. "I figure we can find something to amuse ourselves."

"Somehow. We'll cope. Somehow."

* * *

Circumstances, Kade was convinced, were doing their utmost to screw her.

She had spent the better part of the first hour since parting ways with Smoke sitting in the bar, where a few casual questions and some discreet eavesdropping had managed to identify the prestigious captain of the SS _Meridian_, Black's personal vessel. The skipper was a Tellerite called Karden, which she had divined by listening to him and some of his crew, who were sitting and enjoying several drinks at a table behind her.

Luck had been very much on her side, she had believed, as she'd settled down with a fruit juice - that actually tasted of what it was supposed to, no less - to sit back and observe. Captain Karden had clearly had a pint in the middle of the afternoon, and so it was impossible for Black to be planning to depart, with his ship's master in such a potential state.

Or so she had thought, and she'd almost thrown her glass across the bar in anger when a tall, thin man had approached the crewmembers and informed them that they had two hours until Mister Black wished to depart on board the _Meridian_for Jayan IV. What made it all the more galling - but no more or less disastrous to their plans - was that Karden didn't seem in the slightest bit surprised at the news.

So she'd wasted an hour sitting in a bar listening to a set of alcoholic crewmembers when they knew they'd have a long space journey ahead, and none of them had seen fit to mention it in their extensive discussion. But this left her with a mere two hours in which to stop the _Meridian_from leaving for at least a day.

The _Meridian's_ docking location was no secret, up on the higher echelons of Styx Base, a little out of the way from passers-by and at an airlock connected to corridors which could be sealed off for a direct route to the station manager's office - or so the rumours she'd been collating over the last few days would have her believe. Few people went up there without business, and the _Meridian_had a small enough crew that one could not slip into the crowd as an unknown.

Kade had spent another ten minutes considering her options, and then promptly gone up to the bar to ask for a shot of whatever spirit was strong and cheap. Just the one, for she could certainly not have anything more if she was about to follow through with this plan. But she was, despite how much she'd have berated Smoke if he'd so much as breathed the notion himself, damned if she was going to do this without a drink.


	7. Part 6: Dipper

**Part 6: Dipper**

Consciousness was a painful experience, her brain feeling as if it was trying to leak out of her ears from both the physical pain of the cosh to the head, and the continuous ringing through her mind of the echoes of the psychic invasion. Her vision swam as she opened her eyes, making the bright light even more agonising to behold, and she looked away desperately.

She was on a chair, a metal and uncomfortable chair, with her hands cuffed behind her back. Otherwise she was unbound, in a room which was stark and bare as far as she could see - but the bright light was also focused, centering on her and casting the corners in shadows.

She was also not alone, if the moving shapes in the darkness were anything to judge by, and even as she figured that out, three figures stepped out.

One was the tall, gangly man she had seen in the bar earlier, still in his finely-tailored suit, hands clasped behind his back with an expression of mild-mannered interest on his face. The second was a tall, burly Nausicaan gripping a rifle, whose gaze held nothing but hatred.

The third was the dark-eyed humanoid from the _Meridian_, and a part of her brain ached with the familiarity of his appearance.

"Lieutenant Kade," the Betazoid - for what else could he be, really? - said. "Thank you for joining us."

"Can we skip the mild-mannered psychotic criminal act, please?" Kade had to spit out a mouthful of blood before she could speak; her voice was harsh and dry regardless. "It gets old quickly."

A short, genuinely amused smile from the Betazoid. "All right. I'll cut to the chase. You're going to tell me what you're doing on Styx, what you were doing on the _Meridian_, and who you're working with. Or I'll _take_those answers."

Nausea swam in her stomach as she tried to peer at him, the bright light blinding. "I'm an engineer on the _Northern Star_. I suppose you could say I work with Captain Theron and the pilot called Smoke. As for what I was doing on the _Meridian_?" Her eyes rolled skywards, through pain as much through feigned thoughtfulness. "Would you believe me if I said maintenance?"

The Betazoid's eyes narrowed and then there was pain in her skull, a deep pain, as if someone had shoved boiling fingers into her brain - all hot, all agonising, no subtlety of blades. Just a pressure inside her mind, first digging through her pain and brushing it out of its way as it burrowed deeper, to the layers beneath.

Resisting psychic interrogation was not something taught to most graduates of Starfleet Academy, but Kade was not like most graduates. The techniques she had been taught in her security courses were not to hide what needed to be hidden directly - rather, that the best thing to do was to throw a menagerie of memories forward, a complete white noise of pointless facts that would be impossible to sift through. And with two lifetimes, Kade had a lot of irrelevant recollections.

She was also, unfortunately, still in a good deal of pain from the punch across the temple earlier, and even as she summoned basic mathematical equations from high school education, the presence in her mind jumped across the immediate connection she made with engineering, and then from engineering...

"As I had assumed, you were trying to cut the anti-matter flow to warp core." The words were for the benefit of the thin, suited gentleman, for his eyes narrowed as the Betazoid spoke. "Why?"

Kade curled her lip at him. "Why don't you come and find out?" she sneered, and thought of the Cardassian War.

When a prior host has suffered some extreme catastrophes, it is common for a joined Trill to suppress such memories, or at least allow them to remain in an absent, dream-like form in the back of the brain. This way they will not have to suffer the psychological scars all over again, and even the Symbiosis Committee has been known to recommend that a host allows such memories to remain distant, as if they have happened to somebody else, lest a new host breaks down from several lifetimes of horrific happenings landing in their memories all at once.

Bruen Kade had not witnessed all the greatest tragedies of the twenty-fourth century, but he had seen his share. He had seen what Cardassian soldiers did to civilians, he had seen how a Starfleet unit which had snapped had turned all of its rage and frustration onto enemy prisoners. He had seen the torture, he had seen the murdered children, and right then Kade summoned up every image burned into her symbiont's mind of war and pain to the front of her thoughts.

She felt the searing-hot pressure at the centre of her mind, those thick fingers trying to prise her brain apart, and this time let them through.

The Betazoid physically reeled back as he gained access to her thoughts, and it was only the thin human next to him reaching out a steadying hand that stopped him from falling to his knees. Then he gritted his teeth and glared at her.

The pain in Kade's mind intensified tenfold, her brain feeling as if it had been ripped apart - but, for several long seconds, that was irrelevant as the thoughts at the front of her mind changed. A pile of dead Cardassian infants changed and became the bodies of childhood friends, soldiers shot her family in the backs of their heads, and her old crewmates committed massacres of helpless civilians.

Then the mingling of memories became less vague, less of an amalgamation as the Betazoid sifted through and selected specifics; a memory of the USS _Fearless_' crew was nudged forwards to more recent thoughts of colleagues, and the recollection of meeting Smoke in that hotel bar on New Moscow exploded to the front of her thoughts.

"She's resisting," the Betazoid said, "but I'm getting pieces. She's Starfleet, her name is Lieutenant Alya Kade. The pilot too."

"Has Theron been bought, or has she just been a subject of trickery?" the man in the suit asked, letting the Betazoid go.

Sharp pain, shorter this time - her resistance was weakening and this time she had nothing to hide.

"Deceived," the Betazoid said. "She thought she was taking on honest crew on Vega. She's still clean."

The suited man nodded, and reached into his pocket to pull out a hand-held communicator. "Mister Black? Terje has had some results. Her name is Lieutenant Alya Kade, she's Starfleet Security. The other new _Northern Star_crewmember is, too - we believe Captain Theron is not involved in any of this. If you send men now, you might be able to apprehend…"

"Wait." 'Terje' raised a hand quickly. "Give my apologies to Mister Black, Phelan, but I think there is more to this 'Smoke'… this 'David Jackson'… than she is letting on. A few more moments, and I should have more information."

Phelan paused with irritation. "Sorry, Mister Black, but Terje thinks he can find more on the other _Star _crewmember, whose real name is apparently Jackson. If you will permit us a little more time?" A pause. "Thank you, Mister Black."

He snapped the device shut. "Five minutes before he sends men down to the _Northern Star_."

"It might be important." The Betazoid fixed his keen gaze on Kade, before straightening the jacket he wore and sitting cross-legged on the floor. "I feel it will be, in fact, paramount."

He closed his eyes, and again Kade could sense his presence in her head. This time it was a subtler feeling, trying to ride the various waves of thought that were rising, unbidden, into her battered mind. She tried to focus on the methodical procedure of how to clean out a phaser rifle after use, but it only took a short nudge from him to turn that towards security duties, and from duties back to Smoke, and from Smoke…

She let out a short, sharp scream, and thought of the death of Bruen's wife, of her long battle with a cancer and how the man who could do everything couldn't save the woman he loved. Her yell seemed to echo around inside her head, making her teeth rattle, and it took a few moments before she realised that Terje was screaming too, receiving all of the same anguish.

Then the Nausicaan, at a nod from Phelan, stepped forward to backhand her across the face. Her vision exploded in front of her eyes and the unshed tears from the memory of loss mingled with the pain to stream down her cheeks.

And in that moment, as she reeled from the agony in her jaw, Terje lunged forwards within her mind and seized at the one thing that hadn't made her collapse yet: Hope. Hope that Smoke would make it, that he would summon the cavalry, that they would get her out of here just as soon as he'd made it out of here on the _Dipper_and sent the message back to New Moscow…

"A shuttle!" the Betazoid exploded triumphantly, rising to his feet. "Her partner has taken a shuttle from the _Star _and is heading away from Styx to send information and a plea for support to their superiors! He's not on the base!"

Phelan's communicator was back in his hand within moments, excitedly babbling to Vincent Black, but Kade didn't hear it, finally allowing herself to collapse. Not only was the fight gone from her, worn down from physical and mental exertion, but…

"I must leave, now. Mister Black and the _Meridian _will be going after this shuttle and intercepting her partner," Phelan said, shoving his communicator into his pocket. "We'll be departing as soon as he is on board."

…but Terje had won. And she had failed. The freighter would be faster than the _Dipper_, it would catch up with them, and Smoke would be caught.

"Go ahead," Terje was saying, waving a hand dismissively at Phelan, and not even looking around as the suited man and the Nausicaan headed for the door.

Then there was just the two of them, in the small, dark room, her bound to the chair and Terje now prowling around her, his gaze grim and evaluating before he moved again to sit in front of her. He tilted his head, giving a smile that was almost cheerful, and she could feel the slight niggle at the back of her mind that said he was in there.

"Now, Alya Kade, daughter of Rokel and Evae Tarrick. You have caused me a considerable amount of annoyance, not to mention pain, on what was meant to be a rudimentary interrogation. It has been some time since someone stood up to me like that in questioning. You are strong." The smile broadened, though there was nothing in his eyes but pure malice.

"I look forward to breaking you."

* * *

_Bleep_.

"...uhh?"

_Bleep_.

"...how far out of the stop-point are we?"

"Should still be another hour. _Dipper_ain't that fast, and her comms ain't that good."

_Bleep_.

"Then why're the nav sensors bleeping?"

"No idea."

_Bleep_.

"Maybe you should check it out, cowboy."

"I'm going, I'm going. Just looking for my pants."

_Bleep_.

"I think they're on top of the environmental controls."

"What're they doing over there?"

"Getting over being thrown in a fit of passion?"

"Oh yeah. I probably should have grabbed them for cushioning instead. Though I figure we made the most of a hard metal floor."

_Bleep_.

"Easy for you to say from on top."

"Didn't notice you complaining."

_Bleep_.

"You going to get that, cowboy?"

"Heh, sure. Slave-driver."

"You wish."

_Bleep_.

_Bleep_.

"Smoke?"

_Bleep_.

"David? What is it?"

_Bleep_.

_Bleep_.

_Bleep_.

"We're fucked."

* * *

_"…it is my sad duty to inform you that Lieutenant Jorzan Dal has been declared Missing In Action at the Battle of Khitomer…"_

_"…a fleet of dozens of cubes on a course for the Trill system; Starfleet forces can only cover the evacuation, the Ninth Fleet doesn't have enough ships to attempt to mount a full-scale defence…"_

_"…I'm sorry, sweetheart, but the evacuation all happened so fast… I was in the city, just got bundled onto the first shuttle… it's been three days now and there's no sign that your mother made it off the planet…"_

…then the world swam back into reality again, her vision clearing, and the real world wasn't much better than inside her head as Kade realised she was still tied to a chair.

"It's amazing how Starfleet teach their personnel to cope with tragedies," Terje said, his voice low and genuinely thoughtful. "On Betazed, we would discuss these issues openly, help each other heal. You, instead, are told to shut up, sit down, and bottle it up. Bottle up the death of your homeworld, the death of your mother, the death of your fiancé…"

Kade took a deep, shuddering breath, feeling her knees shaking even though no weight was on them. "Fuck you."

"So why do you keep on going?" Terje tilted his head at her. "If all you're doing is fighting this continuous losing battle… for a people who left your homeworld to rot because it wasn't 'resource-effective'… who help you deal with your trauma by posting you to a low-respect job dealing with low-life scum like me…"

"Low-life scum is right…"

"I know, I said it." He clambered to his feet, dusting himself off. "So why? I can still feel you resisting, even though you have nothing more to hide. Even though you have _lost_. Why is there still fight in you…?" Although his voice was wondering, the question was not entirely rhetorical, and he narrowed his eyes at her. "Why can I still feel hope?"

Kade shook her head quickly, as if it would dismiss him from her mind. "Always… got to… hope…"

"But this is something more… you've got something tangible." Then that searing hot finger was on the sole point in her mind that didn't feel shattered, the little core that had left her with energy… that dose of hope, that long shot which could still pay off…

"The Ghost?" Terje sounded amused. "You're expecting the Ghost to save you? You shared a drink with him in the bar; what _possible _reason could he have to risk Mister Black's wrath?"

Kade had always believed in cold, hard facts, always believed in the strength of science. It was tangible, it was provable, everything had a purpose, everything had an explanation. She had no patience for those of a spiritual bent, and could only barely tolerate the almost religious fixation the keepers of the symbionts had on their wards.

But she had been a security officer for long enough to know that, sometimes, the universe just made things happen. That sometimes things which were improbable could and would occur simply because it was fitting.

And, much to her eternal gratitude to any cosmic being that might or might not have been out there and she didn't believe in anyway, this was one of those times as the door behind Terje was booted open and in stepped Lann, rifle in hand and murder in his eyes.

"Bruen Kade saved my life," he informed Terje calmly, crisply. In the wide station corridor behind him, the fallen shapes of two guards at the doorway could be seen. "And I'm sure you know all about Bruen by now, and what kind of man he was. Which is useful… because you're about to go and meet him."

* * *

"We got a serious problem." Smoke was strapping himself into the pilot's seat even as he spoke, Theron still toppling into the front of the shuttle. "I'm reading a heavy freighter trying to come up all close and personal, and they're tearing along way faster."

Theron immediately bashed at the navigation sensor controls, bringing up a wide local display. "We're not along any of the obvious shipping routes for Styx, or anywhere else in the area for that matter. This can't just be someone else passing through and trying to overtake us."

"Then who are they?" Smoke brought the shuttle up to full power and turned off auto-pilot. "How come they're following us?"

There was no answer for a few long moments, then Theron let off a long string of swear-words in an impressive variety of languages. "Oh, we're screwed."

"What?"

"So totally screwed."

"Why? Who is it?"

"That's the _Meridian_. We're being chased by Vincent Black himself." Theron looked up at him, and he was astounded by just how deep the terror in her eyes was. "He's got to have busted us somehow."

"No way. Kade would never tell," Smoke responded, surprised by how much faith he had in his partner and her resilience.

"Maybe she didn't need to, maybe they just figured that the _Dipper_shouldn't be leaving Styx in the hurry it was in." Theron tapped at the sensors. "They're at full speed, and are going to be right on top of us in about a minute. They haven't yet raised shields or powered up phasers yet."

"If Vincent Black's personal freighter wants to go poking its nose into something just a little bit suspicious, then he's crazier 'n I thought." Smoke swore under his breath. "No, we gotta assume the worst here. We ain't never gonna outrun them, neither. What we got in this area?"

"What?" Theron looked at him with confusion.

"Natural phenomenae! Asteroid field, nebula! There's gotta be something, or we're sitting pretty in open space for them to blast us!" he snapped.

"Oh... no, there's nothing. We're in completely open space," she said. "Twenty seconds until they're in weapons range."

"I'm taking us out of warp," Smoke declared, leaning back and squaring his shoulders. "And I'm gonna make them work if they want to get themselves a phaser lock, transporter lock, or tractor beam on _this_little ship."

"And then what do you do when you dodge them? Keep dodging? We can't outrun them, there's nowhere to go, and there's nobody we can call who'll be here before we're chewing vacuum!" Theron's voice was a little hysterical. "The best thing we can do here is surrender."

"Over my dead body." Smoke patted down his pockets before pulling out a small, battered PADD. "There's a code here for a subspace communication line. I want you to tap into it and transmit all data on that PADD. It'll go to my department, so 'least the info'll get out. If we die here, then there's still a completed mission."

"Good for you!" Theron declared with mock enthusiasm as she nevertheless turned to face the communication panel. "You get to die a hero, I get to die a random freighter captain." Still, she began to tap frantically at the controls.

"They're almost here, I'm bringing us out of warp. I'm going to keep them busy until you can get the data off." Smoke, wincing and silently praying the bucket of bolts he was trapped in would stay together long enough, reached out for the flight controls and lowered the warp field around the _Dipper_.

The stars stopped streaming past him, and within half a second his view was filled not with small dots of light, but the dark green hull of a large freighter dropping out of warp almost on top of him. He immediately turned the shuttle downwards, away from the freighter, even though he knew outrunning it would be impossible. Outmanoeuvring it, however, should be very feasible.

Another bleep filled the cockpit. "They're hailing us," Theron said, not looking up from or stopping in her tapping at the comms control.

"Ignore it, just get that data out. Hopefully my people will take the information at face value, 'stead of assuming the comm line's been compromised just 'cause I don't fancy chatting." Smoke's face was grim, and by now his eyes were fixed on his controls and the space in front of him, not taking in any outside distractions.

"I'm into the frequency - transmitting the data now," she said, just as a bright flash of yellow light flared across the front of the cockpit. "They're shooting at us!"

"Warning shot, 'less they're useless," he corrected darkly, swerved the shuttle to one side as the corner of the cockpit window was lit up again with the same flash of fire. "That wasn't. I'm just plain better 'n them."

By now, Theron was just gripping at the armrests of her chair, her gaze flickering between the progress of the PADD's data transmission, to the navigation sensors, to the cockpit viewport. "They're not coming any closer, they're maintaining the same distance. Thirty percent on the transmission."

"Of course they are..." Smoke swore again, shaking his head. "I'm such a fool. This is about optimum distance for aiming." He hit a few buttons on the flight controls, and the shuttle swung wildly, the stars whirling before them for a few moments until, once again, their view was filled with the _Meridian's_hull.

"What the _hell_-"

"This plays havoc with their targeting sensors! Trust me!" Smoke declared, letting out a whoop he hoped would expel his abject terror as the _Dipper_ careened towards the huge freighter. Flashes of phaser fire hurtled past them as Smoke twirled and jinked about, handling the tiny personnel shuttle as if it was just a banged up _Valkyrie_.

"I don't! Sixty percent!" Theron shouted back, only briefly opening one eye.

Silently uttering thanks he was sure he'd never be able to give to Kade for tuning the _Dipper_'s impulse engines, Smoke pulled the shuttle up, bouncing over another burst of phaser fire, and then brought the craft lurching downwards, less than twenty metres away from the hull of the _Meridian_.

He could now see the energy running along the phaser strip that lined the hull until it burst out in his direction. A small flash of light that preceded the firing gave him an extra warning, allowing him to thoughtlessly calculate, with a pilot's experience, the angle at which the shot would come in and allowing him to avoid it. Smoke inwardly congratulated himself that his anticipation of the _Meridian's_technical capabilities was correct - a high-end targeting computer would have probably made a meal out of a closer target, but the standard program, which merely assisted a human's own abilities, would not sufficiently compensate for the faster-changing firing arc from being so close.

"One hundred percent! It's off!" Theron exclaimed jubilantly.

"Ha! Chew on that, Black!" Smoke whooped at the hull spinning beneath him, just in time for another flash of phaser fire which this time didn't wash across the cockpit so much as across the entire shuttle, and impacted with a heavy, shaking jolt.

The view again changed, this time for a spinning starscape as the shuttle was catapulted upwards from the phaser impact. Sparks flew from the environmental control panel before it died, making Smoke glad he'd retrieved his clothing earlier - though the intently pleasurable few hours he'd had before this disaster had occurred was the furthest thing from his mind right then.

"We're hit! I'm losing power on the port impulse engine, but hull integrity's still-"  
He stopped as the shuttle did, the two of them jerking in their chairs before inertial dampeners could kick in. "And… that would be a tractor beam."

"Piss." Theron turned as the comm panel bleeped at her once more. "They're hailing again… I'm putting them through."

"Shuttle of the _Northern Star_, this is Vincent Black. You have failed to evade capture; continue to resist our efforts to apprehend you and the consequences shall be… severe. First, may I ask who I am talking to? I know that Lieutenant David Jackson is on board, but my sensors are detecting two life-signs." The voice was not quite the calm, quiet, educated tones that Smoke had dreamt up Black would have, despite the eloquence of his words – the accent was instead rather rough, and he couldn't place it as any of Earth that he was familiar with.

He leaned forwards to cut Theron off even as she opened her mouth. "This is Lieutenant Jackson. I got Captain Theron on board; she caught me trying to escape so I subdued her. You try anything at all, and you'll be down one good freighter captain." He tried to give her an encouraging smile and wink as he spoke.

"Quite frankly, Lieutenant, I don't believe you. But I have men who can get to the bottom of this matter. I'm going to be transporting some over to the shuttle to assess you and the craft. Resist them in any way, and you _will _be killed."

The air shimmered with the familiar blue light of a transporter in the middle of the shuttle, and presently a pair of men were standing with them. One was a tall, lanky man in a well-cut suit, a disruptor in his hand; the other, a burly Nausicaan holding a phaser rifle. They took only a fraction of a second to assess their surroundings before their guns were facing the two now-captives, and any brief hopes Smoke had entertained of jumping them vanished immediately.

"We're on board, Mister Black," the human said. Then he turned his gaze on Smoke and Theron. "Get up. Both of you. Away from the controls and to the rear of the shuttle."

They co-operated silently, moving past the two criminals, Smoke not tempted to try anything with the Nausicaan's muscles and rifle. Theron looked pale, as if she might collapse at any moment, and it was only the lingering hope that he might persuade them she had not voluntarily helped him that stopped him from reaching out for her. The Nausicaan, watched over by the human and his disruptor, stepped forward to pat them both down, and relieved Smoke of the phaser he wore on his belt. A small, hold-out pistol was taken from Theron's inside pocket.

"They're contained and disarmed, sir," the human said to the comms panel.

"Good work, Phelan. Does Captain Theron appear to have been restrained or harmed?" The voice across the comm channel now sounded inestimably smug.

"Not at all. She was even armed." Phelan looked them both over, arching one eyebrow critically. "She appears to have been co-operating fully."

There was what sounded like a sigh across the channel. "Talia, Talia, Talia... why did you side with Starfleet? You're one of my best freighter captains. One of the greats. You could have gone far."

"You're strangling people in their time of need, Black." Theron's voice shook even as she challenged him. "You're making it impossible for people to eat, let alone earn an honest living..."

"Like the Ferengi say, war is good for trade. Who am I to argue with the masters?" There was a short, dismissive noise. "But this, Captain, is your confession to working against me? To siding with the law, and doing so... entirely willingly?"

Theron set her jaw, even though Black couldn't see the confidence. "Happily, in fact," she said, her voice not wavering this time.

Another sigh from the comm channel. "Very well." Black sounded beaten, almost submissive. Then, "Kill her."

Phelan shot immediately. The weapon was clearly not set to stun, and when the shot hit Theron in the chest she didn't even have time to let out a yell of pain. She fell to the floor, knocking against the wall on her way down to lie at an uncomfortable angle, like a dropped doll.

Smoke screamed before he even realised what was going on, the sickening smell of burnt flesh filling his nostrils even as he lunged towards her fallen body. But as he rolled her over, all he saw were her open, unblinking eyes, and the huge blackened circle across her chest. Desperately he searched for a pulse, but found nothing.

"She'd better be dead, or I want a refund," Phelan grunted to him. "Get up, pig. Mister Black isn't done with you."

"You..." Smoke raised his eyes to face the man, expression thunderous. He could hear his blood pounding in his ears, overwhelming the numb feeling in his stomach. "You son of a..."

He lunged forwards, this time with a clenched fist, but didn't get two steps before the Nausicaan intervened. It only took a heavy backhand to knock the pilot onto the floor, and a strong blow to the head with the butt of the rifle kept him down, now in enough pain to staunch the red fury.

"She was a traitor, Lieutenant Jackson. Even the vaunted Federation have taken to executing traitors in a time of war. And this _is_war, make no mistake," Black's voice said, calm and disconcertingly soothing. "You, however, are the enemy, and thus have the right to a certain standard of treatment when taken prisoner. A standard that your partner, Lieutenant Kade, is currently enjoying on Styx."

"Kade..." Smoke's stomach clenched up more, and he was almost sick. "What have you done to her?"

"She is alive, and in no worse physical state than yourself. Mentally... well, a Betazoid's interrogation tactics can be harsh. But we can talk about Lieutenant Kade later. What was the message you were sending back to Starfleet?"

Smoke rolled onto his front, weak and battered and with his vision swimming, but the blood still pounding in his ears. His breath came out ragged as he inhaled deeply. "I," he stated, with absolute certainty, "am going to kill you."

"Yes, yes, yes." He could almost hear Black waving a hand dismissively. "We'll get better answers out of him when we return to Styx, then. But first, Phelan... could you check the communication controls and the message logs? We may be able to extract the data directly."

"Yes, Mister Black." The human moved to seat himself at the co-pilot's chair in front of the comms controls. His disruptor was set to one side, away from Smoke, and the Nausicaan maintained his vigil over the fallen pilot.

"There's a moderate encryption," Phelan reported after a few seconds of bleeps. "But I should be able to download the data with a little work, sir."

"Very good. Get to work, and have Lieutenant Jackson restrained for transport to the _Meridian_. I think we have a lot to talk -"

It wasn't that Black was cut off, or even that he stopped talking. But for Smoke and the others on the small shuttle, and probably even some crewmembers of the _Meridian_, what the crime lord was saying became very abruptly irrelevant. Focusing mostly on the floor, Smoke could only see through the cockpit window out of the corner of his eye, but even that was enough to see the entire view fill up with the dark, metallic blue of the hull of the SS _Northern Star_.

"What the..." The Nausicaan wheeled around at the sudden appearance, and Smoke - despite the pain, despite his confusion - moved without even thinking. He lashed out in a hard kick which connected with the man's knee, sending it sideways in a direction it wasn't supposed to go, and was promptly rewarded with a sickening crunch, the large alien letting out an agonised yell and falling to the floor.

His rifle was in Smoke's hands even as he rose to his feet, Phelan still reeling and only just reaching for his disruptor. The pilot didn't hesitate, even though it felt as if time was slowing, as if he had the longest of moments to consider, aim, reconsider... and then fire. The rifle was set to kill, and Smoke knew it.

He hardly had time to watch - or appreciate - Phelan slump lifelessly in his seat before he was engulfed with another blue, bright light of a transporter beam.

When the light subsided, and subsided quite considerably to place him in far darker surroundings than the cramped quarters of the _Dipper_, Smoke was on the transporter pad of the _Northern Star_. Before him, by the controls, stood Kade. She had a swelling around her right eye that would probably turn into one hell of a shiner, and a split lip, but she hardly gave him a cursory look-over before hitting a button.

"I've got him! Get us out of here!"

"No, wait!" Smoke stepped forward, ignoring his aching. "Blow up the _Dipper_, or they might find out what evidence we sent back to New Moscow!" For a brief second, his mind went back to the scene of Theron's body, holding her even as the heat left her, and the thought of just destroying her corpse along with the two criminals would have wrenched at him if he hadn't pushed it to one side.

Kade gave him a briefly horrified look, before nodding. "Lann, did you -"

"I got that," a gravely voice came back across the comm. "She's already lighting up the starscape as we speak. _Now_ I'm getting us out of here, _Meridian_looks angry." The ship rocked as he spoke, the sound of phaser fire audible - but muffled, the shields absorbing the blows. Then there was the sensation of acceleration, punctuated by a few more hits.

"You look like hell," Smoke said to Kade diplomatically as, finally, the familiar lurch of entering warp was felt, and there was no more rocking of phaser fire.

"I'm fine." The response was mechanical, automatic. "We should get up front, make sure Lann's alright with the controls. I think Captain Theron is going to be peeved we stole her ship..."

Smoke stopped, having to lean against the transporter controls as he felt the twist in his gut return. Adrenaline had pushed away sorrow, but now it seemed they were home free, he could feel himself weakening again. "Talia... was with me," he said throatily. "She caught me when I was taking the _Dipper_out and... came with me. Voluntarily."

He lifted his gaze to meet Kade's eyes, and couldn't read her face. "She wanted Black gone. Wanted to be a legit trader; couldn't do that with him running the show. Black's man killed her for it."

"Hell... I'm sorry we couldn't get here sooner." Kade's expression softened, and her arm twitched as if she was about to reach out for him, then seemed to think the better of it. "We were hot on the _Meridian's_ tail - the _Star's_built for more speed than her... we came as quick as we could..."

"If it hadn't been for her, I wouldn't have got the message out to New Moscow." Smoke gave a deep, shaky sigh. "Though that ain't worth much as a sacrifice, really, considering the two of us have got away to report and fight another day." There was a long pause, Kade's gaze dropping, and had he been thinking more clearly he would have seen she was putting the pieces together over him and Theron.

"...what happened to you? Black said they'd captured you," he said at last.

Kade gestured towards the door, pushing it open and heading into the corridor that would lead to the cockpit. "They did. The _Meridian_was set to leave about two hours after you departed Styx. So I... did something stupid."

"Got caught?" Smoke would have input a wry, biting tone had he felt anything but the empty numbness in his belly.

"That was bad luck," she corrected him, but more gently than usual. "I couldn't get to the _Meridian_ on Styx. Black kept her well-guarded. So I grabbed one of the space-suits on the _Star_and, uh... walked across the hull of the base from one ship to the other so I could get to his engines and sabotage them."

Smoke stared at her as they stepped into the cockpit of the freighter. In the pilot's seat, leaning back as the stars streamed past them at high speeds, was a tall, well-built Cardassian who appeared to have more than one vicious weapon strapped to his body.

"You did what?" Smoke demanded of Kade incredulously, ignoring the Cardassian.

Kade didn't, gesturing to him. "Good flying, Lann... hardly felt them scratch us."

Lann stood up, stretching. "Hardly good flying. I had the entry and exit vectors programmed in ten minutes before we arrived. And this ship's tougher than she looks... and the _Meridian_isn't built to be able to blow up something of our size with just one volley." He turned to Smoke, extending a hand. "You must be Jackson."

"And you gotta be Lann. Thanks for the save." Smoke shook the hand and injected as much sincerity as he could into his voice - though he was struggling to feel genuine gratitude for surviving right then, or indeed feel anything at all. Every time he blinked he saw Theron's fallen body and sightless eyes.

"I set a course for Vega. I'll let myself off there, and you two can go wherever you want." Lann lifted his gaze to Kade. "This makes us even." It wasn't a question.

"I think I owe you one, actually, seeing as you saved my partner, too." She gave him a brief nod. "We'll be fine from Vega. It's on our way."

"Fair enough." Lann shrugged, not seeming to care too much, then gave Smoke a quick nod and headed out of the cockpit.

Kade walked over to the co-pilot's seat and sat herself down gingerly, eyes fixed on Smoke. "Are you all right?"

He didn't respond, but did claim the pilot's chair, and was surprised when he found it comforting. "You walked across the hull of Styx Base?" he asked instead. It was the kind of crazy thing he'd do, and just the thought of by-the-book Kade doing that almost lit up a little spark of feeling in him. "How'd they catch you?"

"Believe it or not, they had a psychic," Kade sighed, allowing him to change the subject. "I think he was checking the ship for stowaways before departure, and sensed me on the hull. Then told me - in my head, I mean - that I could make my way to the airlock, or they could reverse the magnetism of the hull and catapult me into space." She shook her head. "And I was at no angle to catch onto anything else. It wasn't like I was going to make a swift getaway once they knew to look for me, either. So I... surrendered." She looked briefly embarrassed by this.

"Hey, beats chewing on vacuum for the rest of your short life," Smoke surprised himself by saying. "Black mentioned he had himself a psychic for the interrogation. I won't ask how that went." Another pause. "So Lann bust you out?"

"Yes... it seems word of a Starfleet infiltrator being captured travels quickly on a place like Styx. Black and the _Meridian_ were already gone by then, they thought I had no other allies and so guards were light. Lann took them out with no trouble, and we knew we had to go after them to save you. So we stole the _Northern Star_... I didn't realise Theron was with you." She frowned a little. "She knew you were Starfleet?"

"When she caught me trying to steal the shuttle, it was either try to get her to co-operate or cosh her around the head. Co-operation seemed better. And..." Smoke sighed, shaking his head. "And I wanted her to co-operate."

There was a long pause, then Kade nodded slowly. "Yeah," she said at last. "All right." Another pause. "Black doesn't know what we know?"

"Not if the _Dipper_was blown up." Smoke looked up at her. "Does this count as a successful mission?"

"We should be able to stop several arms traffickers and cripple, if not destroy Vincent Black's syndicate," Kade replied. Her voice sounded almost mechanical. "It's not a complete success, but it's definitely a victory."

Smoke stared at his hands, frowning a little. The numbness was beginning to fade at the edges, though Theron's body in his mind wasn't going away with it, and a dull ache was replacing the lack of sensation. He didn't know if it was better to have sensation or not. "It don't feel like a win."

Kade peered out of the cockpit of the _Northern Star_. "I can't remember the last one that did."


	8. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

"Lieutenant Kade, please, come in. Have a seat." Captain Callahan stood as Kade entered his office on New Moscow. The tall windows along one wall were probably meant to make the room brighter, but with the continuous rain of the city just made her feel slightly damp.

She took one of the hard-backed chairs on her side of the desk as Callahan returned to his own, rather more opulent and comfortable seat. He poured a fresh mug from his teapot, extending it towards her. "Tea?"

Kade accepted the drink with a grateful nod and took a tentative sip. Hot liquid on her split lip was, however, more painful than she had anticipated, and it was with a hiss of pain that she set the cup down. "Uh… when it's cooled down a bit, sir."

"Of course." Callahan poured himself another mug. "Let's get down to business, then. You and Lieutenant Jackson are to be congratulated – where _is _he, by the way? He was invited."

She considered covering for her partner, before deciding that it was best to not lie to the deputy of SSI. "He's, ah… in the hotel bar, sir. He thought it would be best if he didn't come to the debriefing." There was another pause as Kade contemplated honesty, and decided to not abandon the principle just as it became inconveniencing for her. "I actually do agree with him, sir."

"Your report suggested he had endured certain hardships." Callahan raised an eyebrow. "But then, it suggested you had as well. Still, if both of you think it best, there is not much of significant importance I wished to discuss. As I said, the two of you are to be congratulated for the mission. Commodore MacKenzie is considering it to be a great success."

"I don't know how," Kade said before she could stop herself, "Vincent Black got away."

"And, unfortunately, Command aren't considering the intel sufficient reason to send a starship to Styx without more of a guarantee that Black's there. People looking for the _Meridian _have found nothing, and it's Commander Torr and Lieutenant Valentine's opinion that he's gone to ground in the wake of your mission. Which does, at least, mean that his operations are slowing down." Callahan picked up a PADD. "However, the four freighters that your source revealed are shipping weapons to Betazed, Wolf 424, and Corida have all been detained and their shipments intercepted. That's a significant amount of firepower your information helped us retrieve. Good job."

"Thank you, sir," Kade replied, not feeling much pride at Callahan's praise. Truthfully, headaches had been plaguing her for the three days since their escape from Styx Base, and she was due a meeting with sickbay at some point, if only to pick up some more painkillers.

"As for the names you gave for the Sirius factory, I'm having some of our more bureaucratic investigators look into the matter further – see if we can find some evidence of files being tampered with, of the accounts not matching up, and so forth. But if there's an arrest to be made, you and Jackson will have it, don't worry." Callahan nodded in what was probably supposed to be an encouraging fashion.

"Uh… again, thank you, sir." Kade rubbed her temples, but he didn't seem to notice her discomfort.

"The ship you reclaimed, the _Northern Star_, is being looked over by some of our engineers. She will join the various confiscated craft we've procured through other assignments and will be handed out on a task-by-task basis."

"I think both of us will be glad to see the back of her, sir," she said.

"In light of the excellent performance from the two of you," Callahan said, "I'm going to be partnering you up on a permanent basis."

"This wasn't a permanent assignment?" Kade raised an eyebrow.

"If I'd told you that you'd be split up if you didn't work well together, then the two of you would have just fought like cats and dogs to prove my decision wrong." He shrugged. "I wanted a good, honest performance out of you. I got one. You complement each other well, you're a good pairing. Jackson has the daring, you have the sense. You'll stop him from doing something too foolish, and he'll protect you from indecision. As of this moment, Echo Team is an official and permanent unit of Starfleet Special Investigations."

Working with Smoke for the foreseeable future. Why couldn't he have just blown her brains out? Instead, Kade just nodded and said, yet again, "Thank you, sir."

"But that does bring me to another issue, that of this man you've referred to only as 'Lann'. He appears to have been instrumental in the success of the operation, but you haven't gone into any details." Callahan fixed her with his piercing gaze.

Kade sighed. "I knew him with my last host. But back then he was a soldier, a respectable member of the Cardassian military. I don't know what he's doing now as a bounty hunter, I don't know who he's working for. I don't know what's happened to him over the last fifteen years, but I do know he pretty much single-handedly ensured the success of this mission."

"I'd like to think a good dose of ingenuity by my officers ensured the success." Callahan shrugged. "But as you wish, Lieutenant. I've had some background checks done and we haven't found out a great deal – not much information has been coming out of Cardassian space lately." A pained look punctuated this point. "However, you said he was collecting a bounty on the late Peter Zavits. Although there are several warrants out with rewards, including one from VegaSec, not a single legitimate enforcement body has reported that bounty being collected. So either he was lying for his own reasons or…"

"Or he wasn't working for someone legitimate," Kade finished. "I don't know. He insisted we let him off at Vega, I assumed he'd be talking to VegaSec. We weren't in much state to argue."

"Indeed." Callahan nodded. "It seems you have both been through quite a trial. We don't just have the doctors in sickbay to look you both over – and you especially to see if there's been any neurological damage after the psychic intrusion – but we do have a few counsellors around the base you could make an appointment –"

"Thank you, sir." This final repeat was said the most firmly. "But I'm fine."

A brief wave of understanding crossed Callahan's face. "Very well. Though I must confess, I am somewhat confused as to Lieutenant Jackson's plight. You were captured and interrogated. He received a few bumps and scrapes. The death of Captain Theron is… regrettable, though she _was _a smuggler and criminal. Still, it does not seem to be anything beyond the experiences Lieutenant Jackson has been through already."

Kade winced a little. "I'm not entirely sure what happened, sir," she said, "but I am of the impression, incorrect as it may be, that Jackson got a little too close to Theron."

Callahan regarded her for a few long moments. "You do not simply talk of the distance required in undercover work." It wasn't a question, and Kade didn't need to confirm it. He gave a deep sigh. "That is regrettable, though could have been avoided with a more professional attitude. However, it is not worthy of an intervention and he has asked for no help. In these dark times, we must… soldier on."

"Yes, sir." Kade nodded, internally breathing a sigh of relief. The last thing she had wanted was for Callahan to order her to a counsellor, who would probably have talked about anything _but _the pain of the interrogation – and, at best, would have discussed the memories it had dredged up. Memories best left buried.

There was a pause as Callahan fiddled with a few PADDs, looking a little unsure of himself, before he finally nodded again and pushed on. "Very well. The two of you will, for the next short while, be on standby in preparation of any emergencies that might occur. I don't anticipate this lasting longer than a week before something appears, emergency or otherwise. You'll still be bunking at the Park View Hotel, I'm afraid, but you will have priority in the various facilities here at Kitai Gorod for training in the meantime." He stood up, extending his hand as Kade also got to her feet. "And again, excellent work, Lieutenant."

She shook his hand firmly, nodding with a touch of genuine grace. "Thank you, sir. I'm just sorry we didn't manage to take the bastard down properly."

"You'll get your chance, Lieutenant. Of that, I am absolutely certain." Callahan gave her a smile – unlike the previous this didn't hold the false encouraging warmth a superior needed to give an officer who had undergone a hardship. This smile was cold and hard, and held with it the promise that he would give her the opportunity she wanted.

"I'm sure as well. In fact, I'm counting on it."

The transition between Kitai Gorod Base and the streets of New Moscow was no less disconcerting after her time away as she stepped through the front doors and into the rain. The large overcoat that was property of VegaSec and she hadn't 'got around' to returning she was now grateful she'd kept hold of, wearing it over her uniform, which could do little to keep her dry. Nevertheless, she still scurried from shelter to shelter on the winding road from the centre of the city to the Park View Hotel, which was looking to be in considerably better condition than it had been when she'd first come to the planet.

Inside, the place was still dark and dingy, but she found that considerably more comforting than she had before. With only a short nod to the receptionist, who by then was accustomed to uniformed officers trampling around the establishment, she made her way to the bar where she had left Smoke perhaps an hour earlier.

He hadn't moved from his stool, and his pint was more full than it had been when she'd left, suggesting he'd had at least a glass's worth to drink. He was just staring into the dark liquid, and Kade couldn't help but be struck by the significant difference between this reunion and their first meeting here under two weeks previously.

Smoke didn't look up as she walked over and pulled up the stool next to him, but did shift a little in acknowledgement of her presence. "How'd it go with the old man?"

Kade sighed. "We're officially a partnership. We're on standby for the next week to respond to any emergencies. The freighters were caught, our other leads are being looked into by bureaucrats. And… well, I think Callahan's pleased with us."

"Huh. That's something." Smoke sounded unimpressed.

"Oh, come on, Jackson. We did a good job."

"We fucked up. If it hadn't been for your Cardassian bud then we'd have been killed, the both of us."

"I don't know." Kade waved discreetly to the bartender. "If it hadn't been for Lann, we wouldn't have got the intel from Zavits and it would have all gone very differently. It went the way it did, and we now just have to live with it." The words didn't feel like her. Her memory ached but she thought it was Bruen's wisdom.

"Don't change that folk died," Smoke murmured at last, hunching a little over his pint.

"I… no. It doesn't change that." She glanced over at him, wanting to leave him alone but not sure he'd remain upright if she did. "Do you… want to talk about it?" He shook his head firmly, still not looking at her, and she resisted the urge to sigh again, glancing up only as the bartender stepped over to them.

She looked back at Smoke. "Do you want another drink?"

He looked up at the bartender and then at her, eyes bleary, surprised. "Huh? I… sure. Yeah."

"I'll have a glass of white wine, and… another pint of whatever my friend here's having," Kade told the bartender, who nodded and padded off to get the drinks.

"Almost forgot that you drank," Smoke chuckled, finishing off his pint.

"The stick up my arse isn't in permanent residence, you know," Kade retorted, smiling a little despite herself. But then silence reigned again, not off-set by the drinks that arrived a few moments later, and Smoke promptly returned to staring at his drink a little obliviously.

Kade sat there for a few long moments, sipping on her wine and by now regretting having ordered it. She should have just gone to her room, or back to Kitai Gorod's sickbay for a check-up. The wine would probably not dull the pain in her head enough for it to be an effective substitute, and if Smoke wanted to sit there and mope, well, who was she to stop him?

_His partner_.

It was with a slight curl of the lip that she glanced at him, taking a deep breath. "You know," she started, "there's a high chance we'll have to work with VegaSec again, or so Captain Callahan said." It was a lie, but it served her purposes right then.

Smoke did look up at this, expression one of objection. "That bunch of donut-eating fat-asses? The old man wants us to go work with them? Guess he really does hate us after all…"

"They do keep the peace effectively on Vega," Kade replied, forcing her voice to remain even and fighting off the smile that threatened to tug at her lips. "And they did take down the Primaries rather effectively."

"Ah, shit, not the Primaries. We gonna have to go deal with them jokers? Ain't they VegaSec's problem?"

"They're our problem if they're trying to get people to secede from the Federation, Jackson."

"They ain't nothing more than a bunch of wannabe's who couldn't wage war against your average cockroach, let alone the Federation, let _alone _the Borg if the Collective came a-knockin' on their door. Though that would be downright hilarious if it happened…"

"You're talking about people dying. That's not really anything to laugh about."

"Hey, if folks want to go and be dumb, then that's their own problem…"

The bartender, who had seen the uniforms and realised that he wasn't dealing with a couple when Kade had come in to join Smoke, watched the bickering with confusion. He had assumed them to be workmates, had assumed Kade to be coming in to comfort the obviously distraught Smoke – and yet, there she was, picking a fight.

Perhaps more confusing was that there was Smoke, fighting right back and already looking more upbeat and alive than he had for the ninety minutes he'd been perched at the bar, holding court on the failures of VegaSec and the stupidity of those who fought the Federation even as his partner picked at his arguments, neither of them giving ground.

It made no sense that she'd helped him feel any better at all, let alone that they hadn't killed each other yet.


End file.
